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MEMOIR 



OF 



TRISTAM B URGES 



WTTU 



SELECTIONS 



FKOM HTS 



SPEECHES AND OCCASIONAL WRTTTNOS, 



BY HENRY J, BO WEN, 



PHILADELPHIA: 
WILLIAM MARSHALL AND COMPANY, 

MDCGCXXXV. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand, Eight 
Hundred and Thirty-Five, by Marshall, Brown & Co. in the Clerk's Office of 
the District Court of the District of Rhode-Island. 



Providence: 

PRINTED BY WREDEN & CORY, 
No. 9, Market-square. 



PREFACE. 



It occurred to the Author, many months ago, that a selec- 
tion from the Speeches and Occasional Writings of Mr. Burges, 
would comprise a volume of interest, to the scholar, statesman, 
and man of taste. It was his original design, merely to make 
a copious selection ; but, during the prosecution of that design, 
he thought a record of some of the events in Mr. Burges's life, 
might impart additional value to the work. This has, accord- 
ingly, been added. The peculiar traits of private character, 
and much other matter, which might have been introduced in 
that Sketch, have been necessarily omitted ; because we cannot 
speak of the living as of the dead. A pall is thrown over the 
foibles of the departed ; and their virtues and graces only are 
unfolded for our admiration. But all realize, that such drapery 
conceals not the forms and features of the living, from our search- 
ing gaze. When we write of them, the pen must be lightly 
plumed, and trace only the outlines of their history. This has 
been our simple aim, in the preparation of this volume. We 
have spoken of Mr. Burges, only so far as we might more clearly 
illustrate from his education, habits, and general character, the 
workings of his mind, and the results of the circumstances in 
which he has been placed. 



IV PREFACE. 

The work, therefore, in its arrangement, is divided into two 
parts : The first presents an account of some of the incidents in 
his life, with selections from his Occasional Writings : the sec- 
ond contains some of his Speeches in the Congress of the United 
States. These Writings and Speeches are rich in classical allu- 
sions, apt and beautiful ; the principles and details are liberal 
and exact; and the range of thought, such as flows only from 
a clear fountain. The volume has been prepared during pro- 
fessional avocations, and of course amid many interruptions. 
Whatever errors and defects may be noted, must be overlooked. 
If it impart knowledge and interest to one inquisitive mind, the 
Author will be content. To the scholar and statesman, it offers 
fine specimens of eloquence and truth, with valuable commen- 
taries on our American Institutions. 

Providence, February, 1835. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction Page 9. 

PART I.— MEMOIR. 

CHAPTER I. 
Mr. Burges's family and birth. — His early habits and education. — His friends 
and companions. — Ships as a cooper on board a whaling vessel. — The voy- 
age is abandoned. — Contemplates the study of Medicine. . . . Page 13. 

CHAPTER II. 

Commences the study of Medicine. — Attends school in Wrentham. — Is attacked 
by sickness, and goes home. — Relinquishes the study of Medicine. — Returns 
to school. — His father dies. — Notice of him. — Opens a school in the neigh- 
borhood of Rochester. — Again goes to school at Wrentham. — Attempts 
speaking on the stage. — Obstacles to his success. — Means employed to over- 
come them. — Enters Rhode-Island College as a Sophomore, in 1793. — Inci- 
dents of College life. — Pecuniary difficulties, and unexpected relief. — Grad- 
uates in 1796. — Oration at Commencement, with the Valedictory Ad- 
dresses Page 20. 

CHAPTER III. 

Opens a school in Providence. — Reads law with Judge Barnes. — The lottery 
ticket, and its result. — Admitted to practice in Rhode-Island, in 1799. — His 
marriage. — His standing at the Bar. — Sketches of the Rhode-Island Bar. — 
David Howell. — James Burrill, Jun. — Asher Robbins. — William Hunter. — 

Samuel W. Bridgham. Philip Crapo. Benjamin Hazard. Nathaniel 

Searle Page 35. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Becomes interested in politics. — Delivers an Oration on the 4th of July, 1S10. 
Is elected a Member of the Legislature of Rhode-Island. — Succeeds Mr. 
Burrill as Chief Justice of the State. — His character as a Judge. — Is ap- 
pointed a Professor in Brown University. — Party Spirit. — Is elected a Mem- 
ber of Congress. — Account of his first Speech Page 49. 



VI C o N T E N T S. 

CHAPTEE V. 

Death of Mr. Burges's daughter. — lie is re-elected to Congress. — Death of his 
other daughters. — He speaks on the Revolutionary Claims. — Mr. Mallary's 
Resolution. — He replies to Mr. McDuffie. — Address before the American 
Institute of New-York. — Death of his son Page 57. 

CHAPTER vi. 
The claim of M. D'Auterive. — The debate upon it. — Mr. Burges's Speech. — 
Extracts Page (i9. 

CHAPTER VII. 
John Randolph. — He interrupts Mr. Burges while speaking. — Reply of the 
latter. — Debate continued the next day by Mr. Burges. — He comments on a 
Speech made by Mr. Randolph on the same Resolution. . . . Page 92. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Mr. McDuffie. — Mr. Burges replies to a Speech made by him on the 
Tariff. Rage 105. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Burges is re-elected to Congress. — Chief Justice Eddy. — Aspect of Parties. 
— Speech on the Amendment to the Appropriation Bill. — Dinner to Mr. 
Burges from his Constituents. — He Addresses them. — His Oration at Provi- 
dence. — Extracts. — His Oration before one of the Literary Societies at Prov- 
idence. — Extracts Page 122. 

CHAPTER X. 

Resolution for the Removal of Washington's Remains. — Mr. Burges advocates 
it. — Account of his Speech. — Mr. Mallary's Resolution. — Speech. — Memo- 
rial in relation to the American Colonization Society. — He is attacked by 
Mr. Blair. — Replies to him . Page 133. 

CHAPTER XI. 
Trial of Governor Houston before the House of Representatives, for an assault 
on Mr. Stanberry. — Speech of Mr. Burges. . Page 142. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Burges submits Resolutions on the Tariff. — Speaks on Mr. A'erplanck's 
Bill on tho Tariff. — Extracts from his Speech Page 158. 

CHATTER XIII. 
Speech of Mr. Burges on the Tariff. — Nullification in South Carolina. — The 
Revenue Bill. — The President's Proclamation. — Mr. Clay, and his Compro- 
mise Bill. — Mr. Burges's Address to his constituents. — He is re-elected to 
Congress. — His opinions concerning Slavery Page 174. 



CONTENTS. VII 

Conclusion Page 185. 

PART II.— SPEECHES. 

Speech on the Judiciary Page 195. 

Speech on the Revolutionary Army Bill Page 218. 

Speech on the Appropriation Bill P a g e 249. 

Speech on the Appropriation Bill Page 259. 

Speech on the Removal of the Remains of Washington. . . . Page 312. 

Speech on the Removal of the Public Deposites Page 318. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This volume contains a familiar sketch of the life of Tristam 
Burges : a man who has risen from obscurity, to honorable dis- 
tinction ; who has filled important stations ; and who is now 
numbered among our patriots and statesmen. His life abounds 
in those incidents which mark the progress of a fine intellect 
and an ambitious spirit; and which powerfully illustrate the 
simple and noble character of republican institutions. It tells in 
one respect, the same tale which has been told of other states- 
men — how they have risen by the force of their own exertions, 
to high stations of honor and of fame. 

Various opinions have been expressed, of the value of biogra- 
phies of living men. They are generally considered of great 
value ; because they present living illustrations of manners, 
character, principles and mind. When we are conversant with 
tbe education of a citizen, and with the means pursued by him 
to attain distinction, we are apt to feel, and to express, greater 
confidence in his integrity and conduct. Besides, and what is 
of more importance, the biography of the living may be studied 
by the young, and thus excite ambition, and inspire a love of 
true glory. The citizen is moving before us in his exalted 
sphere, urging the adoption of measures favorable to the pro- 
gress and happiness of his country, and pleading for the rights 
and freedom of mankind. History may tell of battles fought 
and won on the land and on the ocean — of philosophers, poets, 
statesmen, and warriors, and all the mighty energies called into 
being by them ; yet, that history may not arouse the ambition, 
and move the desire to excel, like the story of a living man ; 

B 



* INTRODUCTION. 

who is exhibiting to our own senses the trophies of genius, the 
power of eloquence, the utility of philosophy, the beauties of po- 
etry, the truths of government, and the triumphs of religion. — 
The dying Roman said, "Virtue is hut a name." It is in- 
deed, no more, "if human breath can make or mar it." And 
thus it is with the biography of a living man. It is of no high- 
er use than fiction, and worthy only the name of fiction, if it 
fails to relate with accuracy and fidelity the achievements of 
mind, and of virtue, and then of their rewards. In this con- 
nection it may be read, and impart the best practical instruction ; 
because, it is like "a strong, still, central fire," warming into 
beauty the products of genius and truth. 

The peculiar position of our country is a reason why the lives 
and opinions of eminent men, should be collected in a form, cal- 
culated to disseminate their influence. We are often charged 
with national vanity and presumption, because we boast of re- 
publican institutions, and the freedom extended by them to 
every quarter of the Union. We do boast of that freedom. We 
wish that its animating spirit may be felt, as it has been else- 
where, so that every throne shall totter upon its base, every 
dynasty be destroyed,, and the name of Libert)^ inscribed on eA^ery 
national banner. The utility of our institutions, and the free- 
dom which is our peculiar glory, cannot be more powerfully il- 
lustrated, than by a history of the lives, and a general expression 
of the opinions of men, who breathe the spirit of that liberty 
and labor to diffuse it every where. The world, if it chooses, 
can thus learn our history, and from it draw lessons of instruc- 
tion. For, let it be remembered, the lives of such men, are a 
part of that history. They devise the measures, inculcate the 
opinions, advocate, explain, and give them the sanction of legis- 
lation. The course of public affairs, of popular feeling, is di- 
rected by them ; and the nation participates in their glory. 

This is its influence abroad. It has a stronger, and more 
lasting influence at home. Whatever affords American citizens 
correct knowledge of their country, its constitution, its prosperity, 
its great and diversified relations, its exhaustless resources, what- 
ever writings or opinions have such a tendency, ought to be dis- 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

geminated. Not one American can possess too much knowledge 
upon such interesting topics. They are the study of our wisest 
statesmen. 

There is another view of this subject. It has been intimated 
that this volume contains the story of one, who has risen by the 
force of his own exertions, to a place of honorable distinction. — 
Here, then, is an example of the growth and progress of mind. 
The God of Nature had planted the germ, but it was a long 
time before it expanded and began to bear fruit. Whenever 
we meet the man who has moulded his fortunes amid the con- 
tentions of poverty and disappointment, let us mark that man, 
and draw useful lessons from his example. Besides, there is 
pleasure in contemplating character formed under such circum- 
stances. We feel that it is not wealth alone, nor any outward 
condition, that makes the man. On the contrary, their general 
tendency is, to weaken the energies, and keep down that noble 
ambition, which has elevated the character of society, and given 
another proof of the controlling power of genius. It is well 
therefore, to learn the circumstances under which extraordinary 
faculties have been unfolded, the opinions cherished, the influ- 
ence exerted ; in fine, all which has formed the character of a 
distinguished citizen. 

It is difficult however, to note all the peculiarities of the sim- 
plest character : much more difficult is it, to trace each step in 
the progress of an enlarged mind. Hence, if w r e succeed in 
recording the incidents of Mr. Burges's life, presenting the re- 
sults of his labors in politics and literature, a rational curiosity 
may be gratified. Thus to hold converse with the living, is a 
delightful and useful employment. It seems to form a connect- 
ing link between knowledge and the desire to attain it, inspired 
by an eminent example. 

To write the life of a man still mingling in the active scenes 
of political contention, is an extremely delicate task ; while 
passion and prejudice have lost none of their influence over his 
contemporaries ; and while his foibles still expose him to the 
rebuke and censure of the world. He cannot, like him who 
has passed from the stirring scenes of earth, sleep in undis- 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

turbed repose. For -the dead, the words of remembrance are 
a requiem, and on the tomb may be written an eulogy ; and 
thither may we go to muse upon greatness. But not so 
with the living man. Opposition, indeed, may throw the sub- 
ject into more bold and beautiful relief. But still he is view- 
ed as through a glass, which magnifies, rather than softens the 
shades of his actions. In addition to this, the opinions he en- 
tertains, may be at variance with those of individuals, moving in 
the same sphere ; and by them he will be judged less favorably, 
than by others, who accord with him in sentiment : — allusion 
also, to events and circumstances, to persons connected with 
him in various transactions, may, perhaps, be condemned. On 
the other hand, panegyric should have no place on the page 
which records the memorials of worth and intellect. The legi- 
timate aim of biography is not answered, when good qualities 
are emblazoned, errors concealed, and the claims of its subject 
urged upon popular applause, when they are undeserving of 
such applause. If simplicity and fidelity are observed, then, 
every reader may judge of the virtues or defects, the beautiful 
colors, or the gloomy shades, which the picture may present. 

The strict rules of biographical writing have not been regard- 
ed in this volume. If they had been, we should have omitted 
much which may contribute to its interest. The incidental 
thoughts scattered through its pages, the opinions, friendly or 
otherwise, of men and measures, the spirit of partizanship, all 
may command praise or censure. The book pretends merely, 
as before stated, to give a familiar sketch of Mr. Burges's life ; 
so far as that is concerned, it must be interesting — because all 
that relates to the history, developement, and progress of mind, 
is interesting, and deserves to be made a subject of careful study. 



PART I 



CHAPTER I. 



Mr. Burges's family and birth. — His early habits and education. — His friends 
and companions. — Ships as a cooper on board a whaling vessel. — The voy- 
age is abandoned. — Contemplates the study of Medicine. 

Tristam B urges was born in the First Parish of Rochester, 
in the county of Plymouth, (originally the colony, now called 
the old colony of Plymouth,) in the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts, on the 26th day of February, A. D. 1770. His fa- 
ther's name was John Burges ; his mother's, Abigail. 

In the autumn of 1775, Mr. Burges, the father of Tristam, 
entered the army as a lieutenant, intending to continue in the 
service until the end of the war. But in the winter of 1775, 
he was seized with a pleurisy, which terminated by an abscess 
in the side, of which he never entirely recovered. In the revo- 
lutionary war, he rendered considerable assistance to his coun- 
try, by raising men and collecting clothing. By these means, 
his house became a kind of rendezvous ; which brought his son 
Tristam into an intimacy with some of the brave men of that 
day. Mr. Burges died in November, 1792 ; leaving eight chil- 
dren — three sons and five daughters. 

Tristam was the youngest of these sons. He began to live, 
when American Independence was the theme of general inter- 
est. The story of national oppression was repeated in his young 
ear, and the songs of his cradle were the songs of liberty. The 
first event which he remembers, was the alarm of the battle of 



14 MEMOIR OF 

Lexington. The ncxl, was the return of 1 lis parent from the 
army, sick, and but just alive. 

In the intervals of his agricultural pursuits, his father wrought 
in his mechanical occupation, as a cooper. He owned about 
one hundred and fifty acres of land, which his three sons assist- 
ed in cultivating in the summer, and in the winter they were 
employed in the shop. The land being very sterile, great in- 
dustry was required to gain for the family a comfortable liveli- 
hood. The father could accomplish but little work ; the whole 
family, however, and especially his mother, were constantly 
employed in some kind of labor. By diligence and frugality, 
sufficient money was accumulated to purchase another farm of 
seventy-five acres. 

In those primitive times, education, both in its principles 
and practice, was extremely limited. Whoever acquired, what 
might be denominated in modern days, a common education, 
was a son of fortune. Schools were few, and not of the best 
kind, in the vicinity of Rochester ; and Tristam never attended 
one, until he was about fifteen years old. In the long winter 
evenings, his eldest sister taught him to read. His father in- 
structed him a little in writing, and imparted to him some 
knowledge of arithmetic. A sea captain, named Mathews, 
who married and settled in the neighborhood, gave him an in- 
sight into navigation ; which was intended to subserve a useful 
purpose. He was passionately fond of these studies, and col- 
lected all the books he could find in relation to them. At the 
aae of fifteen he went to the school of Master Bowlin, as he 
was familiarly called, about six weeks, to learn to write. This, 
in addition to his father's instruction, and what he himself after- 
wards learned, comprised all his knowledge in that valuable 
art. He attended the school of Hugh Montgomery, nearly six 
weeks more, when he was seventeen years old, and there 
studied the mathematics ; and this was all the instruction he 
received, until he arrived at the age of twenty-one years. He 
had read however, every book that he could buy, beg, or bor- 
row. In the evening, after the toils of the day, he used to take 
his book, and continue to read, often Until the night was far 
spent. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 15 

During the revolutionary war, the sports were of a military 
character ; and he was accustomed to mingle in all amusements 
peculiar to childhood and youth. Although hut twelve years 
old when peace was declared, yet few soldiers who returned 
from the glorious campaigns of that service, could go through 
the manual exercise with more dexterity than young Bulges, 
with the little firelock which his father had whittled out for him. 
Many of the soldiers visited the family, and nothing so delighted 
him as their animating stories " how fields were won," except 
reading the Pilgrim's Progress, and the life of Joseph. These 
still retain their power over him ; while the tale of the soldier, 
unless it be a story of his own bravery and suffering, has lost its 
charm : and even Homer's battle fields, afford him not such 
pleasure as do his peaceful and lovely episodes. 

The athletic games of New-England, especially at this peri- 
od, were, wrestling, running races, ball, and quoits. The first 
of these was his favorite amusement ; and if he ever had a 
passion for any exercise, it was the wrestling at arms-length. 
These youthful sports, and the interest and love of them dis- 
played by Bulges, illustrate a peculiar trait of character. They 
served to call into active operation, and to strengthen that spirit 
of independence, which was so clearly manifested then, and 
which now breathes in every act, and on every occasion. 

After he was capable of writing "joining-hand," many of his 
leisure hours were employed in composition. He was also pas- 
sionately fond of perusing the works of Pope, Dryden, and Ad- 
dison. Letter writing was very fashionable among his associ- 
ates ; and the letters written by him from the age of sixteen to 
that of twenty-one, would have filled a volume. Some were in 
prose, and others in verse, addressed chiefly to the young per- 
sons of his acquaintance ; none of them, however, have been 
preserved. To this early application to attain a most valuable 
and elegant accomplishment, may be traced in some measure, 
his present style of writing. 

Among his male associates, Elihu Doty was his earliest 
friend and correspondent. Doty was a poet, mathematician, 
and historian ; with an iron memory, a fine imagination, 



16 MEMOIR OF 

and a power of reasoning, surprising when considered in con- 
nection with his other endowments. His wit also was brilliant 
and always at command, and none conld excel him in colloquial 
powers. They were nearly of the same age. Doty's mother 
was a widow, a neighbor, very poor, but of an excellent mind, 
and beloved by all for her lively conversation, and truly benev- 
olent heart. The eldest brother of Doty returned in 1798 from 
a pilgrimage in Europe, whither he went many years before, in 
a destitute condition; and when he arrived at home, he was not 
much better provided ; but he had enriched his mind with sci- 
ence and elegant literature. Besides being a walking library, 
lie brought with him many choice books. They were mines 
of wealth for Tristam and Elihu ; and although but seventeen 
years old, they frequently consumed whole days, when the for- 
mer was not pressed by the labors of the field or the cooper's 
shop ; whole summer days, in a lovely piece of woods on his 
father's farm. There they read together the most interesting 
books brought home by Elihu's brother. 

Elihu himself, unfortunately, had no resources but the sea, 
and on that element he was compelled to seek a livelihood. — 
His first voyage, was from New-Bedford; the second from New- 
York. He succeeded well, and finally became master of a good 
ship. It is difficult to describe the feelings of Doty, at this 
change of fortune. As we have seen, he was a lover of books, 
a poet, and mathematician. His profession enabled him to 
know much of other parts of the world ; to visit lands of which 
he had read in glowing terms of description, and to become fa- 
miliar with the laws and sentiments of people separated by the 
boundless ocean. And now too, that ocean — that wonderful 
and sublime element, was to be his home. But with all these 
advantages, he left behind much that was dear to him ; and he 
regretted nothing more than the loss of his young friend. 

Jonathan More was another of his early companions. More 
was a lad of sterling intellect ; a son of the clergyman of the 
Parish of Rochester. His opportunities for acquiring an edu- 
cation were superior to those of his friend — as his father's means 
were more extended than those of the elder Mr. Bulges. He 



TRISTAM B U 11 G E S. 



17 



was fitted for college, and intended to enter one of the learned 
professions; but his health was so delicate that he was compelled 
to take a sea voyage. He was fond of the sea, and concluded 
to abandon other pursuits for this. Subsequently he became 
master of a ship, sailed a number of voyages from New-York, 
accumulated a handsome fortune, but was finally lost at sea. 

Familiar and uninterrupted intercourse with such young men, 
contributed much to the formation of Burges's habits and cha- 
racter. Accustomed to join with them in their boyish amuse- 
ments, to read, converse, and after the toils of the day, to spend 
hours in their society, his natural desire for knowledge and 
improvement, was increased and strengthened. When the 
mind begins to unfold its energies, it is difficult to calculate the 
influence of such companionship. Next to the advice, example, 
and tender solicitude of a mother, perhaps no outward circum- 
stances help to mould and perfect character, like the intimacies of 
childhood and youth. At that period, the mind is so flexible, and 
the disposition so easily inclined to right or wrong, that few 
resist the temptations that may assail, or the virtues that com- 
mand admiration. As such intimacies originate congenial 
habits and sentiments, new charms are developed, and a strong 
impulse given to ambition and a thirst after excellence. Thus 
it was with young Burges. Many of his qualities of mind and 
heart, may be traced to the reciprocal influence of his compan- 
ions in early life. What firm resolves, may have sprung up in 
their bosoms, when they used to retire to the woods, and read 
together the books which they had collected. Habits, formed 
under such circumstances, are too closely blended with the life 
to be destroyed without a mighty effort. As time rolls on, 
they gather strength, and may obtain victories glorious and 
imperishable. 

It had always been the determination of Burges, to leave his 
native fields, for other avocations. He once thought of going 
to sea, not with any intention of following it as a calling ; but, 
because he believed if he was successful, his father would, after 
a few voyages, be enabled thereby to aid him in his great 
object — the attainment of so much knowledge as would fit 



18 M E MO I R OF 

him to enter one of the liberal professions. His brother Ben- 
jamin shipped for a voyage, soon after he arrived at his twenty- 
first year. The whaling business between the coast of New- 
England and the West Indies, was then very profitable. After 
long and anxious solicitation, Tristam's parents consented that 
he might go on a whaling expedition. Captain Carver was 
fitting from Fairhaven, not more than eight miles from Roch- 
ester. He was an old friend of his father, and agreed to 
ship him as one of his coopers. The die was cast — the am- 
bitious youth felt already as if under sail ; and that he would 
return home, as he has often remarked, rich as spermaceti could 
make him. The number of dollars which his share in the 
voyage would bring, had been counted up. The labor which 
his father must have hired during his absence, was to be returned 
from his earnings ; and the balance applied to learn Greek and 
Latin, to fit himself as a teacher, and thereby enough be acquired 
to carry him through the preparatory course of medical studies. 
He was fitted out with all things heedful for a summer cruise 
on both sides of the Gulf Stream. As he was to be one of 
the officers, a cooper, on board the ship, it was not necessary for 
him to leave his quiet fields, to hold controversy with "the 
ruffian billows," or to join his jolly ship-mates, until a few hours 
before the vessel was to sail. The day arrived when he was to 
bid his family and friends farewell, and for a season to make his 
home on the ocean. It was a day of mingled joy and sorrow 
to him, and of lamentation to his parents. As was mentioned 
in a preceding part of our narrative, they were strongly opposed 
to his intended enterprize ; and consented only through his 
pressing entreaties. He had never been from his father's dwel- 
ling before, except to visit friends in the immediate neighbor- 
hood. And now, he was to leave the family circle, and be 
exposed to the dangers, temptations, and rude assaults of the 
world. While his father was pouring into his ear paternal 
counsel, and his mother was beseeching him, "to take good 
care of himself," and at the same time describing the storms 
of the sea, and perhaps secretly indulging the thought, that one 
of those storms might destroy the frail vessel in which her son 



T It I S T A M BURGES. 



19 



was to embark, intelligence was received, that the ship had 
sailed on her destined voyage. The Captain, when he returned, 
apologized to the elder Mr. Burges, for leaving his son. The 
owners had ordered the vessel to sail earlier than the previously 
appointed day. 

This event, not only demolished all his " air built fabrics," 
but gave an impression to his mind, that it was a providential 
disappointment. He thought also, that further pressure upon 
the anxious objections of his parents, to his embarking on the 
seas, would be resisting the will of that Being, who, while he 
provided for the sparrows, would not leave him without suitable 
provision. 

Under such circumstances, Burges's thoughts were directed to 
the study of Medicine. Since the departure of his friend 
More, he had become intimately acquainted with the father 
of that young man, who loaned him books from his classical 
library. Mr. More was a fine scholar, a man of great mental 
endowments, an able preacher, a devoted, and unpretending 
christian. His elevated integrity was not yielding enough, 
nor his manners sufficiently supple, to gratify one of his church 
— a talkative, malevolent man, who forced Mr. More into an 
ecclesiastical and a legal controversy. The feelings of Burges 
were so deeply interested for the father of his friend, that he 
wrote a satire on his adversary. This, increased Mr. More's 
regard for him, and he proffered any aid, which might facilitate 
his attempts to acquire knowledge. Mr. Burges, however, 
could not dispense with the valuable labor of his son, either in 
the shop or on the farm, and he was obliged to deny him the 
pleasures of learning, until a more auspicious period. 

Character, as before remarked, is moulded by youthful inti- 
macies, made to develope fine affections, to blend with delicate 
feelings, and to become a symbol of the virtue and excellence 
with which it associates. Such intimacies, are the pure and 
original fountains, from whence flow beautiful waters, refreshing 
and ripening the fruits for a delicious harvest. 



CHAPTER II. 



Commences the stud)' of Medicine. — Attends school in Wrentham — Is attacked 
by sickness, and goes home. — Relinquishes the study of Medicine. — Returns 
to school. — His father dies. — Notice of him. — Opens a school in the neigh- 
borhood of Rochester. — Again goes to school at Wrentham. — Attempts 
speaking on the stage. — Obstacles to his success. — Means employed to over- 
come them. — Enters Rhode-Island College as a Sophomore in 1793. — Inci- . 
dents of College life. — Pecuniary difficulties and unexpected relief. — Gradu- 
ates in 1796. — Oration at Commencement, with the Valedictory Addresses. 

After his disappointment respecting the voyage, Burges 
determined to commence the study of Medicine. For this pur- 
pose, he borrowed from Doctor James Foster, the family phy- 
sician, Chesselden's Anatomy, Boerhaave's and Cullen's Theory, 
and other medical works of celebrity. Then he read when 
others slept, and in this progress was prepared, as he thought, 
to ride with a country doctor. At this period, he was twenty- 
one years of age. He had served out his apprenticeship, and 
was free ; and had, as far as his limited means would permit, the 
promised aid of his father. Again a new scene was opening, 
and more cheering encouragement for professional learning. 

Doctor Foster advised that he should study Greek and Latin, 
before commencing a regular course of Medicine. Accordingly, 
he resolved to go to the Academy of Doctor Williams, at 
Wrentham, in Massachusetts ; where a son of one of the neigh- 
bors was then fitting for college. In April, 1791, having just 
passed the age of twenty-one, he left home, in company with 
Silas Holbrook, who had been teaching school in Rochester 
during the preceding winter, for the residence of Doctor Wil- 
liams. At the Academy but a short time, he was seized with 
a bilious fever, which brought him to the brink of the grave. 
After many weeks, he so far recovered as to walk to the street 



TRISTAM B URGES. 21 

door. By this he took cold, and was seized with a violent pleu- 
risy. The pain was so excruciating, that death would have 
been welcomed, as a relief from the agony of suffering. His 
restoration to health was gradual, and in September he was 
able to ride home, a distance of forty miles, with his sister, who 
nursed him in sickness. Every one of his acquaintance pre- 
dicted that here would terminate his classical career. Their 
predictions were not verified. He had lost, to human calcula- 
tion, six months ; yet gained a more full persuasion, that there 
was a Providence which shaped his purposes, "rough hew them 
how he would." 

The eager desire of Burges to become a physician, and to 
acquire wealth, had vanished ; and rather than relinquish study, 
he resolved, by God's blessing, cost as many years as it might, 
to obtain a collegiate education. His sickness obliged him to 
expend more than the amount of school bills for a whole year. 

Doctor Whittaker of Bellingham, his physician, was an excel- 
lent man. He had watched over the ambitious youth, with 
paternal tenderness, during his stupor and delirium, which con- 
tinued for many weeks. Knowing the limited resources of his 
patient, he would receive no compensation for his valuable pro- 
fessional services. 

The succeeding October, Tristani returned to the academy 
of Doctor Williams, with confirmed health, and a renewed de- 
sire for classical knowledge. He had been there but a month, 
when intelligence was received of the dangerous illness of his 
father. He reached home in season to receive the blessing of 
that father, and to follow him to the grave. 

Mr. Burges was a man of original mind, and could it have 
been cultivated by study, few would have surpassed him in the 
excellencies of utterance. He would have continued in the 
army, had his health been preserved, until the restoration of 
peace ; and his name might have been numbered among the 
distinguished men who achieved the Revolution. 

Mrs. Burges survived her husband many years, and died in 
1831. At the time of her husband's decease, his estate was free 
from debt ; and although it comprised a considerable number 



22 MEMOIR OF 

of acres, it was not of great value. Tristam immediately sold 
his share of the farm to his eldest brother. The proceeds, with 
rigid economy, find by instructing a school three or four months 
in the year, fitted him, so much as he was fitted, for college ; 
and enabled him to complete the whole term, including the 
Commencement expences. 

During the next winter, he kept a school in the neighborhood 
of Rochester, and the young men who, the year before, join- 
ed in his sports, were now among his pupils. He seemed 
to be admirably fitted for a schoolmaster. This was a first at- 
tempt at that most useful, unpretending, yet thankless employ- 
ment. Except the short period spent at the academy of Doctor 
Williams, he had been at school, in all his life, not more than 
three months. And, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, 
so perfect was his control over his great, two-handed boys, or 
men, (for such they were,) that at noon day he used to 
play ball with them ; and yet, they would have gone through 
fire and water at his bidding. At this game he was always 
the conqueror, as well as in their feats of wrestling. 

Early in the spring of 1792, Tristam again returned to the 
academy at Wrentham, and continued there until the last of 
October. The hours of recreation, during this season, he de- 
voted to improvement in speaking. His desire to excel in that 
department of study was earnest, and continually increasing. 
It was the usage of the school for each pupil, once a week, to 
declaim on the stage in the academy. The first time Bulges 
attempted to speak, his success was indifferent enough. A 
young man, with whom he had formed an acquaintance, hap- 
pened to be a fellow boarder. He was a fine scholar, and ac- 
complished in the rules and practice of speaking ; and, though 
kind in his disposition, yet he was honest and frank in his ex- 
pressions concerning the faults and imperfections of his friend. 
After Bulges had made his first attempt at speaking on the 
stage, and as they were going home together, the conversation 
turned upon his success. He had never been accustomed to 
read aloud, and whenever he commenced, he invariably hesita- 
ted, and often stammered. This imperfection was manifested 



TRISTAM BURGES. 23 

in his utterance when he went on the stage, or attempted to re- 
cite from memory. His companion finally observed — "You 
must get somebody else to do your speaking for you." . 

To many a youth of sensibility, with but little energy of cha- 
racter, such advice would have opened an incurable wound, pa- 
ralyzed all future effort, and rendered miserable him, who pro- 
mised to be an ornament to his race. But not so with the 
youth to whom it was addressed. He possessed too much en- 
ergy, ambition, and laudable perseverance, to be vanquished by 
such obstacles. And to that same advice may be traced the 
fountain of that eloquence which sprung up in his soul ; for, 
from that moment, he resolved "to speak for himself." 

The house at which he resided was situated on the east side 
of the road, and was sheltered on the west by a thick wood of 
high pines, filled up with under-wood of live oak, growing then 
higher than the lowest bramble of the pines, and forming an al- 
most impervious thicket. After many attempts, the student 
found a path, made by the cattle and sheep, leading towards the 
other side of this wilderness. Pursuing this path, he discover- 
ed a recess, as if cleared away for culture, of one hundred feet in 
diameter, with a few scattering trees left standing. Here, 
thought he, is my stage ; encircling me, is the all-sustaining 
atmosphere ; and these trees before me, are the mute auditors, 
which will not hiss, if I do stammer ! This was his speaking 
place, and hither he usually retired once a day. No human be- 
ing was there to aid or interrupt. The process was simple. In 
conversation, he could talk very fluently ; it was only when he 
began "to speak," that he began to stammer, or hesitate, or use 
a bad tone. He therefore, commenced talking to the trees, 
studiously noting the movements of all (he organs of utterance. 
In this manner, he proceeded in the study of the art of speak- 
ing, and conquered that habit of stammering and hesitating, 
which had attended him from his early years, and acquired to a 
considerable degree a natural style of speaking. 

In that temple of nature, he acquired so much ability "to speak 
for himself," that at the last exhibition of the school, prior to his 
entering college, he was appointed to pronounce the valedictory 



24 MEMOI R F 

address. Such a mark of distinction was so unexpected, that it 
not only animated his bosom with gratitude, hut inspired yet 
firmer resolves to pursue the walks of future eminence. That 
incident in the beginning of life was the original cause of others, 
which have contributed to unfold his character and intellect. — 
The valedictory address received general commendation, both 
for its sentiments and style. Constant practice in every kind of 
composition, had given him unusual facility in that rare accom- 
plishment. He could " write something about every thing." 

In regard to speaking, Bulges had received valuable instruc- 
tion from one man ; and that was communicated in a novel 
mode. This man was a blacksmith, who lived in the town 
of Middleborough, in Massachusetts. Burgcs taught a school 
in the neighborhood, two successive winters. The blacksmith 
often visited the family where he boarded, spent whole evenings 
in telling anecdotes in a manner indescribable. He w r as a 
large but very graceful man ; and his gesticulation was perfect. 
When standing by his own forge, with collar open, shirt sleeves 
rolled up, and filled with the conception of the person and 
the events which he intended to communicate, in the move- 
ment of every finger there was emotion ; each gesture was a 
part of the story, and in unison with all, there was a most ex- 
pressive and unrivalled dignity of manner. 

In September 1793, with a small sum of money in his pocket, 
B urges left Dr. Williams's school, for Providence ; intending to 
enter Rhode-Island College, now Brown University. After a 
patient examination he was admitted, and continued the regu- 
lar course of study, with commendable diligence. A college 
life is filled up with amusing incidents. The first night after 
(he class met, in the first, term, there was a grand festival (as it 
was then represented) of the whole class. Burges being warn- 
ed to appear, although novel scenes were to be acted, yet he 
could not decline without exciting unpleasant remarks. There 
was a tremendous storm raging without, as within. In the 
midst of their jollity, as the table was covered with decanters, 
pitchers, glasses, wine and all kinds of fragments, the tutor's enne 



TRISTAM B URGES. 



25 



was heard, at the door, and in a moment Mr. Messer 1 stood be- 
fore them. He very courteously advised the students to repair 
to their several apartments. They did so. Early the next 
morning a meeting was called by a leading member of the class, 
to take into consideration " the state of the class" One contend- 
ed, that all would be called up, for having liquor in the room ; 
and that many would certainly receive the punishment of ex- 
pulsion. What was to be done 1 The classmate alluded to, 
advised that all as one man, should boldly deny that any liquor 
was in the room. He was a resolute fellow, and born to com- 
mand. Every member agreed to his proposition, except Bur- 
ges. He said emphatically " No ;" observing, " that it was not 
probable they would be called up for a merry meeting the first 
night; but if they were, they must excuse themselves on the 
ground that it was the first night : for their denial would not 
satisfy the tutor, against his own eyes." This was deemed a 
capital expedient, and was adopted in preference to that first 
proposed. They were not "called up," however, for the merry 
meeting. 

By rigid economy, his funds held out, until the last year of 
his collegiate life. It was the common usage at that period, for 
the graduating class to pay not only the Commencement ex- 
penses, but many others incidental to them. In February, 1796, 
five or six members of the class handed about a subscription pa- 
per, whereby the several "parts" were to be taxed at a stated 
rate, to defray the expenses of Commencement. The individu- 
al to whom the valedictory address should be assigned was to 
pay the sum of one hundred dollars ; the salutatory, eighty 
dollars. The class knew that Burges was unwilling to be con- 
sidered as a candidate for the first part ; and that if he did not 
subscribe the paper, it would be announcing himself a candidate. 
They also knew his limited pecuniary resources. He told them 
it was unjust ; but, nevertheless he would sign, because he was 
confident he should not be obliged to pay. The next month 
the parts were distributed, and to him was assigned an oration, 

1 This gentleman was afterwards President of the University, and held the 
office with honor for a period of eighteen years. 



26 MEMOIR OF 

with the valedictory addresses. The sum of one hundred dol- 
lars, nearly one half the expenses of Commencement, according 
to the subscription, must be advanced. It was a heavy penalty 
for the honor conferred. The majority of the class however, 
offered to share the expense with him ; but he declined accept- 
ing their generosity, and paid the whole himself. After the 
examination in July, he left college. At the close of the year 
in September, in addition to the above sum, his other bills 
amounted to one hundred and twenty-five dollars. All his little 
patrimony had been consumed. His eldest brother would 
gladly have loaned him the money, but he had it not. At first 
the student thought it might be borrowed of some of his father's 
old friends. But as he called on one after another, and depicted 
to them in an honest and simple relation his necessities, offering 
his brother as security for payment, each excused himself by 
saying, that the last dollar had just been loaned ; but neighbor 
such a one had money to let. Neighbor such a one could not be 
found. 

In this anxious state of mind, weeks passed away, and yet 
no relief came. After deliberate reflection, he resolved to return 
to Providence, when the class met, ten days before Commence- 
ment, take a dismission from college, open a school in that town, 
and sedulously labor until all these debts were paid. This de- 
termination for a season seemed to relieve his solicitude and 
perplexity. But for a fortunate and providential event, the 
contemplated enterprize would have been prosecuted. 

Two or three days before leaving his mother's dwelling for 
Rhode-Island, Bulges accidentally met a man, who, although 
he bore the reputation of a miser, yet he was a kind-hearted old 
man. He had not seen him since the death of his father, and 
the old gentleman greeted him with a truly sympathetic feeling. 
In the course of conversation he approved his plan of selling all 
to buy knowledge. The student observed that it promised to 
cost more than he was worth : and in reply to the earnest en- 
terrogatory of the old gentleman, " how T he explained the 
condition of his purse. The former said, " I am very sorry, for 
I had more money than that, a few days ago ; but most unfortu- 



Til 1ST AM BURGES. 



27 



nately for you it is loaned. But, Tristam," continued he, " I 
can raise it for you, if you will pay me a little something for my 
(rouble." At what rate, inquired the applicant 1 " Oh, six per 
cent ; I take no more." — His reputation was that of twelve. 
" In truth and candor, ray young friend," said. he, " It will cost 
me four or five dollars to collect the two hundred and fifty ; and 
if you will pay me that, I will raise the money and send it to 
you, as soon as you desire, and take your note without your 
brother's name." But to this last proposition Burges would not 
accede, as his brother was willing to endorse the note, and fully 
able to pay it. 

This was one of the most interesting events of Mr. Burges's 
early life. It seemed to him a sad decree of fortune, to be 
obliged to leave college, and to decline the honors of Commence- 
ment ; especially as the oration and addresses were prepared for 
that occasion. The distress of mind which he had endured for 
weeks, was inexpressibly severe. But from fear and disquietude 
lie was relieved in a moment, by this kind-hearted old man. 

As before intimated, he returned to college, and graduated in 
September, 1796. The subject of his oration was, " The Cause 
of Man." At that day, this oration was justly considered as a 
remarkable production. The paragraph commencing, " Guided 
by reason, man has travelled through the abstruse regions of 
the philosophic world ;" and that succeeding it, " By imagina- 
tion, man seems to verge towards, creative power," are beauti- 
fully constructed. They have been selected as exercises for 
declamation, in many schools and colleges. Its style was so 
smooth and flowing, and the manner in which it was delivered 
was so interesting, that it gained for him great applause. His 
course at the University was marked by continued application, 
and a desire to excel in every department. In the belles lettres 
studies, he was a fine scholar. It was the custom at that period 
for the students to declaim in the college chapel every evening, 
after the devotional exercises. Whenever he spoke, his class- 
mates anticipated pleasure, and they were not disappointed. 
At that early period he was distinguished for his attainments in 
oratory. And when on the stage at Commencement, he 
appeared to so much advantage, his friends were grateful that 



28 MEMOIR O F 

he had surmounted numerous obstacles, and that lie was about 
to enter the world under such flattering tokens of approbation 
and promise. 

This distinction in oratory, was acquired in a great measure, 
through the instruction and example of Doctor Maxcy, then 
President of Rhode-Island College. This gentleman was a 
model in pulpit oratory, and deeply versed in those elegant 
studies associated with eloquence. His eloquence, however, 
was not of that kind which receives most applause from the 
unthinking multitude. It was altogether mental: "You seemed 
to hear the soul of the man; and each one of the largest 
assembly, in the most extended place of worship, received the 
slightest impulse of his silver voice, as if he stood at his very ear. 
So intensely would lie enchain attention, that in the most 
thronged audience, you heard nothing but him, and the 
pulsations of your own heart." 1 

The Oration delivered at Commencement, together with the 
address to his classmates we will here introduce. 

The Oration commences thus : " Human nature has been a 
theme of much discussion. Among the ancients, some railed at 
man, and some ridiculed his imperfections. Certain modern 
philosophers make depravity 2 a part of their creed ; and assign 
the most elevated seat in Paradise to tltose, who feel the most 
perfect contempt for human nature. The catechisms of these 
sages inform us, that man is malevolent; that his passions 
hurry him into wretchedness; and that his understanding is 
only another name for imperfection. Should individuals offer 
this for a description of their own minds, perhaps justice might 
read the character with silent approbation. When it is produced 
as the picture of man, the same justice commands us to wipe 
the aspersion from the portrait of our common nature. 

" If exalted actions flow from elevated sentiments, then, to 
establish human dignity, and reason man into approbation of 
himself, must be among the first advancements towards virtue. 

"Be it, therefore, our task, to plead the cause of man. 

1 Burges's Oration, before the Federal Adelphi, in 1831. 

2 Critics may remember, that depravity, through the whole of this piece, 
signifies such a disposition of heart, as wishes universal diffusion of wretchedness. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 29 

" Let us examine his disposition ; consider the utility of his 
pas-ions ; survey the perfection of his understanding, and 
observe how far surrounding creation stands as monumental 
testimony of human greatness. From the situation of man, 
we may argue the necessity of benevolence in his disposition. 
He was, doubtless, formed for happiness. His desire of bliss, 
and his powers of fruition, evince the truth of this assertion. 
His felicity depends, almost entirely, on social intercourse. 
Solitary, man is in want, in fear, in disconsolation. A 
reciprocation of beneficence alone can make him happy. This 
he must be disposed to perform, or he cannot fulfil the final 
cause of his nature. Man's destination for, happiness, and his 
mutual dependence, therefore, clearly originate the necessity 
of human benevolence. 

" Feeling and experience evince the benevolent disposition of 
man. A sight of distress wounds the heart. A view of joy 
warms the soul with gladness. We are pleased to remove 
pain. We rejoice to communicate delight. These things we 
could not perform without a disposition to diffuse felicity. This 
disposition is all we mean by benevolence. 

" Suppose the heart of man malevolent, he must then lose 
every social satisfaction. For who could receive those mutual 
favors, which none were disposed to bestow? Man must be 
condemned to solitary misery. Never would he wipe a tear 
from the eye of sorrow; never would he pour the balm of con- 
solation into the bosom of grief. Nay, he would grieve at the 
appearance of jo'y. He would eagerly disseminate wretched- 
ness. Every benefaction of Providence would swell the tide of 
human misery; and man could never smile undisturbed, while 
one joyous emotion existed, even in the bosom of Deity. Must 
we believe man endowed with such a disposition? Yes, if we 
believe him malevolent. But can our reason, our feelings, our 
experience, subscribe to such a creed? No. For necessity and 
sympathy both evince man benevolent. Nor could he be 
otherwise, unless his soul were blacker than the dunnest fiend 
that a distempered fancy ever generated in the dark regions of 
mythology. 



30 M E M O I II OF 

"Though man stands vindicated from the charge of malevo- 
lence, yet has calumny blackened his character with other 
accusations. 

" Human passions have often been a mark for the arrow of 
contumely. Austerity condemns them, because they are some- 
times irregular. As well might the same austerity curse the 
elements of nature, because the thunder, the earthquake, or the 
hurricane, sometimes rend an oak, split a mountain, or sweep a 
kingdom into the ocean. 

" If we impartially look on our own nature, the utility of our 
passions must appear. Man, is at times in danger. Danger 
originates the necessity of caution, and caution is secured by 
the passion of fear. Unresisting innocence invites the hand of 
oppression. To prevent a repitition of injury, omniscient Deity 
planted the seeds of anger in the bosom of man. Self love, 
to some the most odious of all the passions, is still an emanation 
of benevolence. Like that, it has for its object, the diffusion of 
felicity. It first secures our own enjoyment. It then offers our 
bosom to a parent, to a friend, to our country, to the indiscrimi- 
nate citizens of the world. Thus, on self love are grafted phi- 
lanthropy, patriotism, friendship, and all the tender growths of 
domestic charity. 

"A love of glory is the most violent, extensive and durable, of 
all the passions. For glory, men encounter toil, danger, and 
death itself. No pain, no labor, no toilsome virtue, no arduous 
heroism, can be a price too dear to purchase immortal renown. 
A passion which thus disposes men to sacrifice ease, safety, and 
life itself, to gain the applause of their fellow men, must inviola- 
bly unite mankind, and lodge in every breast a pledge for the 
social exertions of each individual. 

" Let the votaries of apathy decry the passions. What can 
be the felicity, what the virtue, of their passionless philosophers? 
If man were void of self love, would the voice of native want, 
rouse him from the sleep of indolence? What would shield his 
bosom from danger, what would arm his hand with power, if 
fear did not teach him caution, and anger learn him to resist the 
aggressions of violence? Who would toil for man? Who, with 



TRISTAM BURGES. 31 

a smile, would bleed on the altar of emancipation, if the God of 
nature had not with love of glory warmed the bosom of man? 
Destitute of passions, man had stood, like the marble statue, 
without a motion; and eternally worn the same smile or frown 
which the last touch of nature's hand left impressed on his 
countenance. 

"Understanding claims our next attention. This forms a 
splendid part of human nature. By this man perceives, remem- 
bers, reasons, and imagines. Perception and memory princi- 
pally subserve the operations of reason and imagination. 

" Guided by reason, man has traveled through the abstruse 
regions of the philosophic world. He has originated rules by 
which he can direct the ship through the pathless ocean and 
measure the comet's flight over the fields of unlimited space. He 
has established society and government. He can aggregate the 
profusions of every climate, and every season. He can melio- 
rate the severity, and remedy the imperfections of nature herself. 
All these things he can perform by the assistance of reason. 

"By imagination, man seems to verge towards creative power. 
Aided by this, he can perform all the wonders of sculpture and 
painting. He can almost make the marble speak. He can 
almost make the brook murmur down the painted landscape. 
Often, on the pinions of imagination, he soars aloft where the 
eye has never traveled ; where other stars glitter on the mantle 
of night, and a more effulgent sun lights up the blushes of 
morning. Flying from world to world, he gazes on all the 
glories of creation: or, lighting on the distant margin of the 
universe, darts the eye of fancy over the mighty void, where 
power creative never yet has energized, where existence still 
sleeps in the wide abyss of possibility. By imagination, he can 
travel back to the source of time ; converse with the successive 
generations of men; and kindle into emulation, while he surveys 
the monumental trophies of ancient art and glory. He can 
sail down the stream of time, until he loses "sight of stars and 
sun, by wandering into those retired parts of eternity, when the 
heavens and the earth shall be no more." 



32 MEMOIR U I 

"To these unequivocal characteristics of greatness in man, let 
us adduce the testimony of nature herself. Surrounding crea- 
tion subserves the wants and proclaims the dignity of man. 
For him day and night visit the world. For him the seasons 
walk their splendid round. For him (he earth teems with 
riches, and the heavens smile with beneficence. 

"AH creation is accurately adjusted to his capacity for bliss. 
He tastes the dainties of festivity, breathes the perfumes of 
morning, revels on the charms of melody, and regales his eye 
witli all the painted beauties of vision. AVhatever can please, 
whatever can charm, whatever can expand the soul with exta- 
cy of bliss, allures and solicits his attention. All things beautiful, 
all things grand, all things sublime, appear in native loveliness, 
and proffer man the richest pleasures of fruition. 

"Can he then raise his feelings too high in the scale of self 
approbation] Can he sufficiently abhor that contumely, which 
perpetually babbles of human depravity ? In man, is it not 
calumny against Heaven 1 Is it not pointing the arrow of in- 
gratitude against the munificent bosom of a God 1 

"If man can rejoice in the diffusion of felicity, is he not, like 
his Creator, benevolent ? If his passions urge him to embrace 
the common interest of man, are they not useful? If his under- 
standing guides him down the career of existence, is it not 
perfect ? If surrounding creation waits on his wants, does it not, 
in the language of its Creator, talk aloud of human greatness ? 
Do not all these shining tints brighten on the portrait of man? 
Yes. He rejoices in munificence ; he toils for universal felicity ; 
he developes the mysteries of nature ; he aggregates the goods 
of space, of duration, and even arrests the attention of earth and 
heaven. 

"This thought elevates man high on the theatre of exist- 
ence, and places him full in view of a surrounding universe. It 
gives him an important part in the great drama of being. It 
tells him, all intelligences are interested in the success of his 
performance. 

"Yes, my countrymen, you arrest the attention of millions. 
On you are fixed the eyes of that throng of departed patriots, 



TRISTAM BURGES. 33 

philosophers, and philanthropists, who measure their achieve- 
ments by the dignity of their nature ; and whose beatified 
spirits, now leaning from the azure battlements of heaven, allure 
their followers up the road to glory. You they hail, as their 
descendants ; as the patrons of science ; as the votaries of 
virtue ; as the candidates of immortal beatitude." 

The oration was followed by addresses, to the Corporation, to 
the President, the Tutors and Professors, the under-graduates, 
and his classmates. The latter address is inserted here. 

"J\fy Classmates : Often, on similar occasions, from this place, 
the world has heard the pathetic narrative of collegiate joys that 
are past. I will not pretend to determine why this has been 
done. This narration may be all reality. It may be a custom- 
ary story, told to lure from the eyes of spectators the tear of 
sympathy, as a tribute grateful to valedician eloquence. It may 
be an ingenious artifice, woven to conceal the loathsome visage 
of classical animosity. 

" Far from me be a wish to disguise the truth. Yet if we have 
had enmities, why may we not cease to feel them ! Why may 
not the hand of charity throw the veil of forgetfulness over those 
parts of our classical existence, which we cannot recall without 
a painful emotion? Never will our bosoms soften with a 
warmer glow of forgiveness. Never, perhaps, shall we all meet 
again, till we meet beyond the narrow sea of time. Let us, 
therefore, on this day, solemnize the funeral of expiring enmity. 
Let us plant on its tomb the green olive of friendship. Let us 
part as brothers. 

" Must vye then part ] Yes, the dark curtain of separation is 
now drawing between us. In a few hours we behold each 
other's faces no more. To-morrow's sun, shall see us scattered 
oyer the face of the world. We must now reciprocate a last 
adieu before a gazing multitude. This task is ungrateful. 
Parting friends, like parting lovers, wish to lean on each other's 
bosoms, and sigh a fond farewell in some sequestered shade, 
where no grief-unhallowed eye, can violate the tender inter- 
course. 



34 MEMOIR OF, &c. 

" Are not we of that description 1 Are not we friends '/ Can 
it be otherwise 1 Memory is witness too faithful. Never, never 
can he, who now addresses you, cease to feel the obligations of 
gratitude. When pale disease 1 and excruciating pain stretched 
him on the restless couch for many a sleepless midnight, you 
watched his wants through all the tedious hours ; you offered 
the cordial to his expiring spirits ; you, with tender assiduities, 
soothed his groans, and cheered him back again to life. O my 
Father ! transfix this heart, if it ever cease to glow with joy at 
the joy of these my friends, or to melt with sorrow at their 
woes. 

"My good brothers: we this day launch out on the billowy 
ocean of life. A world lies before us. He who smiles away the 
terrors of the tempest, is our Father. 2 

" Let all our exertions ultimate on the felicity of our brother 
men. Then shall a heart, which never can reproach us, be 
our eternal companion. Then, when the grim messenger of 
fate shall point his iron shaft full at our breasts, with a mag- 
nanimous smile, we will meet dissolution ; sleep undisturbed the 
sabbatism of death, and wake to ceaseless raptures, beyond the 
regions of time." 

1 While in College, he was sick of a fever. During his illness, his classmates 
and fellow-students were his constant attendants. 

2 Milton. 

3 Pope. 



CHAPTER III. 

Opens a school in Providence. — Reads law with Judge Barnes. — The lottery 
ticket, and its result. — Admitted to practice in Rhode-Island, in 1799. — His 
marriage. — His standing at the Bar. — Sketches of the Rhode-Island Bar. — 
David Howell. — James Burrill, Jun. — Asher Robbins. — William Hunter. — 

Samuel W. Bridgham. Philip Crapo. Benjamin Hazard. Nathaniel 

Searle. 

Immediately after Mr. Bulges graduated, he commenced 
school -keeping in Providence. His circumstances being known, 
and the remarkable talent which he had formerly displayed in 
the profession of an instructor, both contributed to increase the 
number of his scholars. He continued to teach then, about 
twelve months ; and by frugality, was enabled to discharge all 
his debts, and to begin the world again, comparatively indepen- 
dent in his pecuniary affairs. 

In October, 1797, he left Providence, to visit his mother in 
Rochester, intending to return in a few days, and re-open his 
school. While on the way to his mother's house, he was sud- 
denly taken ill; and six weeks elapsed before he was well 
enough to return to Providence. During his absence, a new in- 
structor had taken possession of his room, and secured a number 
of his scholars. He was obliged therefore to seek another place, 
and finally obtained " Hacker's Hall," which accommodated 
one hundred and twenty pupils. School-keeping, was the only 
employment of which he has boasted that he was a perfect mas- 
ter. Many of his pupils have since been distinguished at the Bar, 
and in other pursuits. To his efforts in moulding their charac- 
ters and minds, they are indebted for much of their present dis- 
tinction. The school was not abandoned until he was suffic- 
iently in funds to complete the study of Law, to which profession 
his thoughts had been long directed. 



36 MEMOIR OF 

While in college, he had commenced the study with Judge 
Barnes, of Providence ; who was a distinguished Lawyer and 
most estimable gentleman. Although his school occupied six 
hours in every day, yet he never failed to spend six hours in 
reading Law. A few weeks before the time fixed for the termi- 
nation of his school-keeping career, one of the managers of a 
lottery, pressed him to purchase a ticket. The price was five 
dollars ; and he utterly refused at fust, because he had not that, 
amount of money in possession. The gentleman observed that 
he would accept a note payable at a convenient time. Mr. 
Burges would not then accede to this proposition, but afterwards 
consented to give his note. The ticket drew a prize of two 
thousand dollars, which afforded him permanent relief. For he 
had looked forward to another period, when he would be just even 
with the world ; a period too, full of doubt and apprehension in 
relation to his professional career. Now 7 , he devoted day and 
night to Law 7 ; and when admitted to practice in Rhode-Island, 
in 1799, he was thoroughly versed in all the principles of that 
profound science. 

In the year 1801, he married the daughter of Mr. Welcome 
Arnold ; who was an eminent merchant of Providence. They 
have travelled long together, sometimes in the sunshine of glad- 
ness, and sometimes in the gloom of deep distress ; but they 
have learned to look at that light which cheers the pilgrimage 
of time. 

Perhaps no circumstance is more favorable for the full dc- 
velopernent of talent and character, than conflict with superior 
minds. To this cause may be attributed in part the distinction 
of the legal profession. The hall of Justice is rife with important 
questions, and opportunities for the display of genius. There, 
the majesty of law is proclaimed in its great and in its minute 
principles. The questions are of necessity numerous, compli- 
cated, and extensive in their range. No man can succeed, un- 
less he is master of all these principles. He must bring there- 
fore to this work, a heart engaged, a mind ready to impart and 
receive instruction. His thoughts must be ever marshalled, 
and like an army in an enemy's country, always prepared for 



TRISTAMBURGES. 37 

conflict. Added to these, industry^ perseverance ; never exult- 
ing in victory* nor cowering in defeat; calm, yet prompt in 
reply ; incorruptible in morals, and ambitious to press forward 
in the path of excellence. 1 

This description of what a lawyer ought to be, applies in its 
prominent parts to Mr. B urges. But a few years after he was 

1 The profession of the law is held in the highest estimation in those coun- 
tries, observes a late writer, where civil liberty exercises a salutary influence. 
In England, for example, we know it is associated with titles of nobility, and 
general confidence. Individuals of humble origin have enjoyed public esteem 
and been promoted to stations of honor and emolument, by means of their le- 
gal reputation. In former times, Lord Kenyon and Edmund Saunders were of 
this class. In later days, Copley, (Lord Lyndhurst) Lord Chancellor Eldon, 
Lord Stowell, and Lord GifFord, all attained exalted places without the aid of 
family or wealth. 

In the United States, the profession is honored with like distinctions. Emi- 
nent lawyers are in all our legislative bodies, framing and enacting statutes, 
and receiving tokens of confidence. There are strong prejudices against them 
among a certain class ; but these are fast giving way. The profession how- 
ever, with us is different in its character, customs, and attainments, from that 
of England; although we might select many individuals equal to the most illus- 
trious of that nation. Lawyers in this country are not only bnrthened with the 
preparation of causes, but they are obliged to yield to importunate claims on 
their time and labor. They must not only be versed in theory and practice, in 
most of the liberal sciences, politicians, and legislators, but familiar with com- 
mercial and other interests. From the necessity of the case, therefore, but few 
excel as lawyers, in the true sense of that term. Yet with such obstacles to 
surmount, how many names among the dead and the living, have been conspic- 
uous in our country! 

On the other hand, where civil freedom is not prized, as in Spain, lawyers 
are among the lower orders of men. Official influence is obtained through 
favor and flattery, seldom by merit. In Germany, and Poland, their condition 
is not much better. As the doctrines they inculcate, conflict with the arbitrary 
will of despotism, they cannot enjoy the same privileges, as those in a free 
community. 

Another general remark may be here made. The eloquence of the Bar is 
not what it might be, if better advantages were offered for display. Almost all 
its speaking is confined to tedious facts, minute investigations of the common 
law, or commentaries on statutes. Effective appeals to passion can rarely be 
made ; popular questions are seldom discussed. It is admitted, however, that 
when a lawyer speaks elsewhere, on any interesting topic, his eloquence may 
be of the highest order. Then exciting points may be introduced, and the 
finer feelings aroused, 



38 M E M O I It O F 

admitted to practice law, he had attained signal influence as an 
advocate. The powers of his mind, and his enthusiastic feel- 
ings, were enlisted in every cause which he argued. So deeply 
was he interested, so persuaded of the justice of his side of the 
question, that he was never known to admit his client to be in 
the wrong. If doubts were suggested by the opposite party, be- 
fore trial, he would repel them in an instant, as if they reflected 
upon his own honor and judgment. His practice was very ex- 
tensive; and few important causes were argued, in which he was 
not engaged. The power of his eloquence was supreme over 
judges, jurors, and spectators. When he spoke, the Court House 
was often thronged, and none listened without a tribute of ad- 
miration. 1 

Many circumstances aroused his ambition, and contributed to 
his success ; and none more than the reputation of those men 
who were then in practice. 

The Bar of Rhode-Island, about that time, in proportion to its 
numbers, was as eminent as any in the United States. David 
Howell, afterwards appointed a District Judge of the United 
States Court, was among the number. Mr. Howell was a 
thorough lawyer, a fine scholar, and deeply versed in the libe- 
ral sciences. ^ 

James Burr ill, Jim. was a member of the same Bar ; and was 
acknowledged to be at its head. His public and personal qual- 
ities were held in the highest repute. 

The members of the Providence County Bar, requested Mr. 
Burges, in January, 1821, to pronounce his Eulogy. 2 To pay a 
just and appropriate tribute to departed excellence, requires line 
taste and accurate discrimination. The Eulogy of Mr. Burges 
is a choice specimen of a peculiar kind of writing ; affectionate, 
and fully comprehensive in its view of the mind, character, and 

1 We might add here, numerous anecdotes, in relation to Mr. Burges 's legal 
arguments, his wit, and unrivalled talent at repartee. But, from motives of 
delicacy towards individuals, who at the time were interested, and who might 
now feel injured by their repetition, although they do not reflect upon private 
character ; yet on account of their severity they had better be suppressed. 

2 A notice of this Eulogy belongs strictly to another part of this volume. 
We have introduced it here, as the sketch of Mr. Bun ill could not with pro 
priety occupy any other place. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



39 



services, of its lamented subject. In its delivery, Mr. Binges 
was perhaps more successful in exciting delicate feeling, than 
he had ever been on any previous occasion. This may be at- 
tributed in part to the theme, and the grief pervading that 
community of which Mr. Burrill had so lately been the pride 
and ornament. 

It is difficult to describe the excitement of that occasion. 
Imagine a multitude gathered in a spacious temple, to manifest 
sorrow at the death, and esteem for the memory of a great man. 
Imagine a friend speaking of the virtues of his brother and 
companion. Look on that assembly, and you see the tear of 
sympathy, falling from the eye ; and, as the orator dwells on 
the solemn theme, mark the change in his own features, and 
his faltering accents ; until utterance is choked by the power of 
contending emotions, and one universal burst of lamentation 
only, is heard. This is not exaggeration. Mr. Burges's elo- 
quence on that occasion, cannot be adequately described. It 
sprung from the heart, and touched the tenderest chords of the 
heart. 

He thus began : " The living ever cherish a memory of the 

dead. Their features are placed on the canvass, their form and 

stature given to the marble. In some countries, art has labored 

for the entire preservation of the body ; in others, changed by 

that element which has been deified for its purity, their ashes, 

inurned, are preserved by family affection or national gratitude. 

" Sepulchral monuments are scattered over the world, and 

j differ only in form and masonry. Their object is the same ; 

I whether the cairn of the Gael, the Scythian tumulus, the 

j Asiatic mausoleum, the pyramid of Egypt, or the green hill-top 

i and unlettered stone of our own country's primitive children. 

J They seem to form a kind of gloomy frontier between the two 

I worlds ; the great world of the living, and the greater world of 

the dead ; and we may sometimes read upon them something 

concerning those who have past from this region of shadows, to 

that realm of realities. 

"Where letters were unknown, the achievements of departed 
worthies have been committed to historic tradition and parol 



40 MEMOIR OF 

song, and delivered from generation to generation ; until by the 
revolution of kingdoms, the nation was extinguished. In all 
ages, literature, wherever it has flourished, has been employed 
in the production of memorials of the good and the great. 
History and poetry, biography and eulogium, people memory 
with the illustrious millions of past ages. Well was it said of 
the Greek and the Roman, "half our learning is their epitaph.'" 
The people of those nations toiled above ail to perpetuate the 
excellencies of each other — not so much by brass and marble, 
as by the more imperishable labors of literature. Their heroes, 
statesmen, orators, and artists, were distinguished by funeral 
eulogiums. 

"France seems to have adopted this custom of classical anti- 
quity ; while, in England, a tomb in Westminster Abbey is the 
great panegyric of British glory. Marlborough is eulogized by 
dull, cold marble. Turenne's immortal exploits are celebrated 
by Fletcher, in the no less immortal eloquence of his country. 

" Our own country has produced some examples in this depart- 
ment of literature; and we, my brothers, have before this day 
mingled our tears with our eulogies over the tomb of out- 
departed friends. I say not these things to apologize for our 
manner of commemorating the merits of our departed friend. 
Those who knew him, and who know us, can never believe us 
ostentatious in sorrow or in eulogy. Although in other com- 
munities, the excellencies of their illustrious dead may not be 
commemorated in the manner we are this day attempting; yet 
let us choose rather to imitate the example of republican an- 
tiquity, in such an instance of bereavement as that before us; 
where, not only we, his professional brothers, deplore our loss ; 
but this religious community, over which he for years presided ; 
the learned Fellowship and Corporation of the University, where 
lie held a distinguished seat; the Federal Adelphi, of which 
he was a first founder, and most classical brother ; the associa- 
tion for encouraging the economy, and preserving the items of 
the surplus produce of the humblest individual labor, which has, 
already, given public testimony of his high merits ; the great 
commonwealth society for the advancement of domestic indus- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 41 

try, which has lost in him one of its earliest and most devoted 
patrons ; all the commercial institutions of this community ; 
the inhabitants of this his native town ; every virtuous and 
high-minded son and daughter of Rhode-Island ; in a word, 
our common and universal country, mingle their deep and 
heartfelt regrets with those tears, shed over his tomb, by the 
illustrious citizens of that high and august body, in the very 
bosom of which, as in the bed of glory, our townsman, our 
friend, our brother, our lamented Burrill expired. 

" Before this hour, the story of his death hath been told in the 
utmost limits of our inhabited country ; and I do believe, humble 
as are my abilities, could my voice reach so far, the narrative 
of his merits would mingle with the melancholy echoes of that 
tale, and be heard by every ear with mournful pleasure. I may 
be charitably mistaken. Some one may have selected an illus- 
trious foe whom he could not reach, when alive, but may dare 
to plunder, when dead. It cannot be. The savage leaves his 
fallen adversary, unviolated, when he cannot adorn himself 
with his spoils. 

" Such then is the occasion, and such the object of this day's 
assembly. Pardon me, my brothers, my fellow-citizens, for 
being in this place, and for this purpose. I deeply feel the em- 
barrassment of my situation. The character of a great Scholar, 
Advocate, Statesman and Legislator, can be perfectly drawn by 
him only who is deeply imbued with all those illustrious excel- 
lencies. Csesar only could write Caesar's Commentaries. None 
but the great master of the Forum could portray the perfect 
orator of Cicero. A few sketches only of the character of our 
lamented friend will be attempted. Even here the touches may 
be unfaithful, while the hand trembles with sympathy, and the 
coloring of the piece is dimmed by the tear of the artist. How 
can I speak of such a son, when I know my voice will be heard 
by his venerable and bereaved father 1 How can I speak of 
such a father, while I behold his weeping children ? The light 
of eulogy will only show them more distinctly their bereavement. 
It cannot brighten the gloom of their desolation. * Thoughts 
that breathe and words that burn,' can never relume the eye 



42 M EMUIR U V 

and warm into life the lineaments of his face, who so much and 
so affectionately loved them. The sage of Athens said, ' count 
no man happy till after death, because that alone places his 
fame and fortune beyond the mutations of life.' The great 
Teacher of Nazareth disclosed a more sublime and consoling 
philosophy, and irradiated the darkness of ancient wisdom with 
the light of life, and immortality beyond the grave; and all the 
felicities, and glories of a new heaven and a new earth." 

Mr. Burrill was born in Providence, Rhode-Island, on the 
twenty-fifth day of April, A. D. 1772. He was remarkable in 
his youth for quickness of apprehension, an engaging disposi- 
tion, and a thirst for knowledge. He was accustomed also to 
pay an unusual deference to religious observances, a trait which 
characterized him through life. The rudiments of his English 
and classical education were acquired in the school of Mr. Wil- 
liam Wilkinson, of Providence ; a celebrated instructor in those 
days. In September, A. D. 1784, at the age of twelve years, 
he entered the freshman class of Rhode-Island College, now 
Brown University. At the Commencement in September, A. D. 
1788, he graduated ; and immediately commenced the study of 
Law, at the age of sixteen, in the office of the Hon. Theodore 
Foster, then a lawyer of extensive practice. In May, 1790, 
Mr. Foster was elected a Senator in Congress, and retired from 
professional business. Mr. Burrill then entered the office of the 
Hon. David Howell, where he remained until September, A. D. 
1791, when he was admitted to practise in all the Courts of 
Rhode-Island. At the early age of twenty-five years, he was 
appointed Attorney General of the State; and held it amid all 
the revolutions of party, nearly sixteen years ; when in May, 
1813, on account of impaired health, he at the same time, 
resigned that office, and the practice of Law. In June following, 
he was elected a member of the Legislature for the town of 
Providence. In May, 1814, he was chosen Speaker of the House 
of Representatives. At the May session of the General Assem- 
bly, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial 
Court ; which office he held till the following February, when 
he was elected to the Senate of the United States. He attended 



TRISTAM BURGES. 43 

four sessions of that body. On the twenty-fifth day of Decem- 
ber, A. D. 1820, after a few days illness of a pulmonary com- 
plaint, he expired in the full possession of his mind, with the 
hope and trust of a Christian. 

As a lawyer, Mr. Burrill had no superior in his native State, 
and few in any other section of the Union. At the beginning of 
his professional labors, he was distinguished for a comprehen- 
sive knowledge of the principles and practice of Law. His 
mind was clear and strong ; it could master the most intricate 
questions, unravel the web of sophistry, and present truth in its 
most captivating garb. An active zeal, thorough preparation 
in argument, unsullied integrity, contributed to his fame. His 
knowledge was not confined to his profession. In the closet he 
studied elegant literature. He loved its beauties. It was his 
delightful recreation, after the toils of the forum, to linger over 
the pages of poetry, read the lofty speculations of philosophy, 
and learn from past history, lessons for the future. Few minds 
contain such treasures of historic and scientific truth, as did his ; 
yet he disdained every thing like pedantry. By his own merit 
he stood on an eminence commanding admiration. 

But his fame was not restricted by the narrow limits of party 
and sectional divisions. Fearless in the expression of his opin- 
ions, and zealous in political warfare, yet, he enjoyed to the last, 
general respect. In his own State, his popularity and influence 
were almost unlimited. The sentiment of Burke, in him, was 
practically illustrated. " Before one is honored with national 
confidence, he ought to obtain such a degree of merit in his own 
neighborhood, as may be a pledge and security to the public, 
that he will not abuse their trust." 

Mr. Burrill, in the Senate of the United States, attained the 
first rank of honor and esteem. " He reached that point not by 
the pliant arts of a courtier ; nor by the bartering, shuffling 
chicanery of intriguing politicians. No ; it was by his candor, 
patriotism, wisdom in council, his powers in debate ; the dili- 
gence and fidelity wherewithal he kept the high trust reposed in 
him by his country. The high-minded men with whom he 
controverted great questions of national interests, beheld with 



44 MEMOIR OF 

delight the noble bearings of their adversary, and cheered him 
with their confidence, and cherished him with their esteem and 
friendship." 

In all important debates he took a chief part. Among the 
questions of interest at that period were the Seminole War, and 
the restrictions on Slavery. On the former, he was one of a 
tribunal formed from the Senate with high powers. Through 
the contest he was so impartial, so firm in his own sentiments, 
yet moderate towards others ; that he received the unquali- 
fied homage of his political opponents. 

The extension of Slavery by the admission of Missouri into the 
Union, was opposed by Mr. Burrill with his usual zeal and 
ability. He lived, however, to see " Slavery with all his chains 
oared across the Mississippi." During his whole career in the 
Senate, he was ever ready to advocate and explain great princi- 
ples, and to plead for the diversified interests of his country. 

Mr. Burrill's style of speaking was of the most simple and 
unambitious character. He never attempted any display in 
oratory. His elocution was clear, vigorous, always to the point. 
He was remarkably happy in his application of classical pas- 
sages to the subject in dispute. He had been engaged in an 
interesting cause for a poor woman, against one who was blessed 
with an abundance of riches. Tbe jury, against law and 
justice, returned a verdict in favor of the rich man. Mr. Burrill 
started from his seat, and addressed the Court, in the language 
of Lear : 

" Plate sin with gold, 

And the strong lance of Justice hurtless breaks; 
Clothe it in rags, a pigmy straw will pierce it.*' 

A motion was made in Court for a continuance of a case 
merely for delay. Mr. Burrill opposed the motion, which was 
refused. He began his address to the jury thus : " Hamlet, in 
an eloquent soliloquy on the miseries, and such miseries of hu- 
man life as would justify suicide, mentions ' the Law's delay.''" 

In December 1820, he delivered a speech in the Senate of 
the United States, (it was his last) in opposition to the admis- 
sion of Missouri into the confederacy ; the constitution sent up 
by the people of Missouri, he believed was not in accordance 



TRISTAM BURGES. 45 

with the Constitution of the United States. In attempting to 
rise on that memorable occasion, to address the Senate, his 
surtout was entangled by his chair, and before he could recover 
from the embarrassment, the Secretary had begun to call the 
yeas and nays. Mr. Burrill apologized to the President for not 
rising sooner, by stating the cause ; when Mr. James Barbour, 
of Virginia, jocosely observed across the Senate Chamber, that 
the gentleman ought to regard it as an omen of defeat, and 
yield to it accordingly : to which Mr. Burrill instantly replied, 
" 1 fear no omen, in my country's cause." 

Asher Robbins, formerly the District Attorney of Rhode- 
Island, and now a Senator in Congress from that State, ranked 
high as a member of the Bar. Few men could boast of his 
classical attainments, historical knowledge, and general excel- 
lence as a lawyer. No man could speak more logically ; no 
one present questions in a more luminous view ; or command 
greater interest in argument. Whenever he spoke, the 
Court, the Bar and the audience were delighted by his clear 
statements of controverted points. His sentences were so 
equally poised, his premises so precisely stated, his conclusions 
so beautifully deduced, and the whole argument so finished, that 
he was esteemed among the gifted men of that day. In his 
later years, his mind lias lost none of its original vigor. The 
great models of Grecian eloquence which he admires and has 
successfully cultivated, impart to his speeches, a rich, chaste, 
and commanding style of oratory. The history and destiny of 
Greece he still dwells upon with a scholar's enthusiasm, and a 
patriot's hope. 

The mind of Mr. Robbins may be compared in some respects 
to that of Mr. Burrill. Both of them possessed a clear and ac- 
curate knowledge of the principles and details of a case, before 
they attempted to argue it. Hence, the jury were made to 
comprehend important principles first ; minor points were sug- 
gested as the greater were enforced. This was a chief cause of 
their success as advocates. They were logical, careful in the 
use of language, in the construction of sentences, and in their 
general manner of speaking. Mr. Burrill however, acquired 



J<> MEMOIR OF 

greater fame as an orator, than Mr. Robbins. He possessed 
many natural advantages over Mr. Robbins. His voice was 
stronger, and more melodious ; his gestures more graceful, and 
his figure more commanding. He evinced also greater feeling 
in his manner. But, next to a lucid arrangement of ideas, they 
resembled each other most, in their promptitude in debate. 
Each would meet a question at the moment, without the least 
apparent effort, strip off its drapery, and present it in terms fa- 
miliar to the dullest understanding. Blessed with such rare 
endowments, Mr. Robbins's fame, as a scholar and advocate, is 
duly appreciated. The description of the Roman orator con- 
cerning Herodotus applies to him : — " He flowed on, like a quiet 
and placid river, without a ripple." 

William Hunter was another eminent advocate. His repu- 
tation at the Bar was acquired by slow degrees. But, when his 
talents were fully developed, few attracted more admiration. 
He could not compare with Mr. Burrill or Mr. Robbins as a 
finished lawyer. In the closet, however, he in many respects 
equalled, and in others excelled them. Mr. Hunter's learning 
is rare and extensive. With general history, few men are more 
conversant. He is master of the classics and belles lettres stu- 
dies. He has written many eloquent orations and addresses : 
His declamation is splendid ; — words beautifully arranged, an 
imagination chastened by study, united with a happy method of 
illustration, all these give an imposing form to his arguments. 
He has not as much logic as Mr. Robbins ; but a tact at elegant 
repartee, and often a union of pleasantry and sarcasm. He is 
an impressive speaker. His figure is commanding in its propor- 
tions, his gestures natural and appropriate, and his general 
manner adapted to the subject and the occasion. 

Samuel W. Bridgham was admitted to practise, about the 
same period with Mr. Bulges. By his lofty integrity, untiring 
application, and patient research into the principles of every 
cause in which he was concerned, he acquired and sustained 
the reputation of an efficient counsellor and advocate. His 
practice was very extensive, and no lawyer was ever more devo- 
ted to the interests of his clients. His professional acquirements, 






TRISTAM BURGES. 47 

and the amiable qualities of his heart, commanded the respect 
and esteem of his brethren. 1 

Another gentleman, Philip Crapo, was equally indefatigable 
in his professional pursuits, and was acknowledged to be a 
sound lawyer, and faithful counsellor. He is still in practice. 

Benjamin Hazard was another eminent member of the Bar of 
Rhode-Island. His mind is strong, clear, and acute. He al- 
ways speaks to the point — never travels out of his chosen path, 
to cull flowers of rhetoric, or to seek any ornaments of oratory, 
but plain, downright common sense. For a period of nearly 
thirty years he has been, and is now, conspicuous in the legis- 
lative annals of Rhode-Island. Perhaps no individual can be 
named, who has acted a more important part in framing statute 
laws ; and few who excel him in the primary qualifications of 
a legislator. 

Nathaniel Searle, also attained a distinguished rank at the 
Rhode-Island Bar. He loved Law as a science. Few men 
ever acquired a more perfect knowledge of its diversified branches. 
His latest years were eagerly devoted to the study. He read a 
volume of Reports, or an elementary work, with as much avidity, 
as an ordinary reader would peruse an interesting novel. It 
seemed as if he could not gain sufficient knowledge. To this 
unconquerable love of his profession may be attributed the suc- 
cess which attended him from the beginning to the end of his 
life. In the argument of a cause, he would go from its great 
points to its minute divisions, as if by intuition. He could 
hardly utter words with sufficient rapidity to convey his exuber- 
ant ideas. Yet his arrangement was remarkably clear, and so 
was his manner of illustration. He pursued an unbroken chain 
of reasoning, from premises to conclusions : and he was elo- 
quent ; not by the embellishments of fancy, nor by pathetic ap- 
peals, nor by strong and impassioned declamation : in all these he 
was deficient. His eloquence was characterized by a clear, and 
powerful style of demonstrative reasoning. He could not reach 
the classical manner of Mr. Robbins, nor the flowing, elegant 

1 This gentleman now holds the honorable office of Mayor of the City of 
Providence. 



48 MEMOIR OF, &e. 

style of Mr. Hunter. But, in legal learning, the prompt appli- 
cation of principles to particular cases, he was their superior. 
He was thoroughly versed in technical law, and acquired a rep- 
utation honorable as a counsellor and advocate. 

These were the ornaments of the Bar of Rhode-Island. 
With such men Mr. B urges associated ; and, side by side, they 
contended for professional honors. 



C H AFTER I V. 

Becomes interested in politics. — Delivers an oration on the 4th of July, 1810. 
Is elected a member of the Legislature of Rhode-Island. — Succeeds Mr. Bur- 
rill as Chief Justice of the State. — His character as a Judge. — Is appointed a 
Professor in Brown University. — Party Spirit. — Is elected a Member of Con- 
gress. — Account of his first Speech. 

The emoluments of the legal profession in Rhode-Island, are 
not so large as in many of the other States ; and hence it 
requires diligence and economy to obtain a livelihood by the 
practise of Law. At this period, the profession was there not 
only distinguished for learning and eloquence, but there were 
men of excellent business habits, who, by their industry, acquired 
a larger share of practice, than some of their eminent contem- 
poraries. Mr. Burges, however, was fortunate in his earlier 
efforts at the Bar, and was enabled to gain enough to meet the 
ordinary expenditures. Although engaged in most of the impor- 
tant causes that were argued, from the period of his admission, 
until he abandoned the practice in 1825, yet, he was never 
compensated in any proportion for services rendered. 

At this period, he began to take an active part in political 
discussions. It was about the time of the enactment of the 
celebrated Embargo Law ; and few men who lived, and partic- 
ipated in the excitement in Rhode-Island, have forgotten the 
conspicuous position of Mr. Burges. At the public meetings he 
was generally present, and at several of them, he made enthu- 
siastic and successful addresses. He was usually requested to 
draw resolutions and memorials, upon the political topics of the 
day. They were remarkable for racy sentences and spirited 
appeals. But his attention was not confined to law and politics. 
The ordinary business of the day finished, he was accustomed 
to pursue scientific investigations, elegant literature, and the 

G 



50 M E M G I R I 

study of the great models of ancient oratory. Besides his pro- 
fessional labors, lie contributed largely to the periodical press, 
and by many essays acquired considerable reputation. He had 
also delivered orations before societies of different kinds, which 
were highly commended, and widely circulated. On one occa- 
sion he was very successful — the Fourth of July, 1810. The 
title of this production, was, "Liberty, Glory, and Union ;" and 
at that day, as at this more distant period, it was well adapted 
to inspire the loftiest sentiments of patriotism. He justly con- 
sidered, that no men ever possessed sterner principles, or a 
stronger love of freedom, than our Pilgrim ancestors, and their 
immediate descendants. Magna Charta, the great book of 
Liberty, they brought to this land as to an ark of safety, and 
transmitted it from generation to generation. They left their 
homes for freedom, crossed the wide ocean, and came among 
mountains, and forests, and savages ; and sent up their prayers 
in the great temple of Nature, amid the roar of heaving waves, 
and whistling winds, with no covering but the outstretched 
heaven, and no protection from calamities and privations ; yet 
they acquired a name and a glory in the wilderness. " Had the 
ocean," said Mr. Burges, "foundered their little bark, while 
bearing them over its stormy region ; had the shores which 
received their weary and emaciated bodies, been whitened by 
their bones, rolled up by the waves, and mingled with the sea 
weed ; or had the God of their fathers left them, poetry might 
have learned some fragments of the story, mingled them with 
fiction, and amused posterity with the piteous narrative." But, 
the vessel did not perish — the Pilgrims were not buried in the 
deep sea — the God of their fathers did not forsake them. The 
country they visited, has become a monarch among the nations. 
It is the land of freedom, intelligence and religion ; it is the 
birth place of Adams and Henry ; the resting place of Washing- 
ton and Franklin. 

We rejoice that the memory of the Puritans, is held in such 
reverence by their descendants. To them, we owe the posses- 
sion of a delightful country ; institutions founded in wisdom, 
and reared under the protecting wing of religion ; habits, strong 



TRISTAM BURGE S. 



51 



in virtue ; principles, regulated by the reciprocal influence of 
piety, example, and a common interest. A nation ought never to 
forget its founders or benefactors. Posterity enjoys their labors. 
Wherever a monument is raised by their wisdom, inscribed by 
their own hands, that inscription should be written deep on the 
hearts of their children. For, be it remembered, such monu- 
ments are the work of time, and should be preserved, until 

" The dreadful trumpet, sounds the general doom." 

At the session of the General Assembly of Rhode-Island, in 
1811, Mr. B urges took his scat as a Representative from the 
town of Providence. In the following August, he was re- 
elected, but the calls of his profession, united with the peculiar 
state of parties at that time, obliged him to retire from the Legis- 
lature. From this period until the year 1815, he pursued with 
his wonted enthusiasm the practise of Law. In the month of 
May, of that year, he was appointed Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the State, to succeed Mr. Burrill, who had 
been elected a Senator in the Congress of the United States. 
This tribute to his integrity and learning was the more accepta- 
ble, on account of the peculiar circumstances under which the 
appointment was made. Mr. Burrill, as we have already 
remarked, was the most eminent lawyer in the State, and few 
men ever discharged judicial duties with such rare ability. 
The people felt a commendable pride in the Supreme Court, in 
its promptness and legal acquisitions. The selection of Mr. 
Burges for that high and responsible office, under such circum- 
stances, was, as we have intimated, a signal mark of distinction. 
In the discharge of its multiplied duties he was learned, prompt, 
courteous ; commanding respect by his talents, and adorning 
the juridical annals of the State. This office, however, he held 
but one year; for the party to which he had been opposed 
gained the ascendancy, and deprived the State of his most val- 
uable services ; affording a striking illustration, of the folly and 
insecurity of annual appointments of judges. 

He immediately resumed his practise, and year after year 
added to his fame as an advocate. Meantime a growing inter- 
est in the science of Orator v and ilie Belles Leltres studies was 



52 



M E M O I R OF 



felt among the friends and patrons of Brown University. The 
instruction was not of that valuable and practical kind which 
was required, and the Corporation were solicitous for the appoint- 
ment of a gentleman, who would not only perfect the students 
in those elegant accomplishments, but also confer distinction 
upon the University. Mr. B urges was popular as an orator and 
writer, and known to be devoted to these sciences in all their 
branches. Accordingly, he was selected as Professor of Oratory 
and Belles Lettres, in that ancient Institution. The duties o( 
the Professorship he performed with an enthusiasm worthy oi 
all praise. During the entire period of his services, the improve- 
ment was such that the Commencement exercises were reputed 
to be superior to those of any University in our country. The 
lectures which he delivered were extemporaneous, and were fine 
specimens of the art which he was teaching. His election to 
Congress, and a law enacted by the Corporation, obliged him 
to abandon the Professorship, after having devoted several years 
to its duties. 

It may have been understood from a preceding part of our 
narrative, that Mr. Burges belonged to what was denominated 
the Federal Party. When he was yet young in life, and even 
to the time of his appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, that party was in the ascendancy in Rhode-Island. 
Subsequently, it was in the minority, and its members deprived 
of all honors and emoluments. The friends of Mr. Burges de- 
sired to see him in the Congress of the United States, that his 
acknowledged abilities might be exerted in a wider sphere, and 
the fame which he had acquired at home, become more gene- 
rally known. But they could not with any confidence of suc- 
cess, solicit the suffrages of the people, on account of the spirit 
of partizanship. Prejudices Which had survived for a long pe- 
riod, began to abate, and the attention of many was directed to 
Mr. Burges, as eminently qualified to discharge the duties of a 
Representative in Congress. Objections and fears, however, 
still existed. Previous to 1825, no opposition was made to Mr. 
Eddy, who had been for many years a member of Congress. 
Indeed it was deemed useless to oppose him ; because he was 



TRISTAM BURGES. 53 

so extensively known and esteemed among the people of Rhode- 
Island. In July, however, of that year, the personal friends of 
Mr. Bulges resolved to nominate him as a candidate for Con- 
gress, against Mr. Eddy. A violent controversy arose, which was 
continued until the day of election. Every frivolous objection 
was urged against the claims of Mr. Burges ; but he triumphed 
over all, and was chosen by a considerable majority. 

In December, 1825, he first took his seat as a member of the 
House of Representatives of the United States. This honorable 
trust he accepted with a sense of deep responsibility. He was 
to appear before his fellow-citizens in a new, enlarged, and 
important sphere of duty and usefulness. He was to represent 
the interests of his own constituents, and to support measures 
conducive to the welfare of his country. He was surrounded 
too, by the talent, patriotism, and experience of statesmen, le- 
gislators, and politicians. The House of Representatives at 
that period exhibited a rare collection of eminent individuals. 
Webster 1 was there ; and Sergeant, 2 Livingston, 3 and Everett. 4 

1 Of Webster, how truly may we say, he is 

" Freedom's now, and Fame's, 
One of the few immortal names 
That were not born to die." 

2 John Sergeant is reputed to be one of the most learned and accomplished 
constitutional lawyers in the United States. 

3 Edward Livingston has been a distinguished citizen for many years. He 
removed from New-York to Louisiana, soon after the admission of the latter 
State into the Union, and was engaged in extensive and lucrative practice at 
the Bar. He was employed to form a penal code of laws and a code of prison 
discipline. The former is a monument of wisdom, justice, and mercy united. 
He is ranked among the eminent statesmen and learned jurists of the age. 

4 Edward Everett is a remarkable man. In college he was noted for his re- 
fined taste and general scholarship. At the early age of eighteen he studied 
Divinity, and was settled over one of the largest and most intelligent congrega- 
tions in the city of Boston. As a preacher, he was exceedingly popular ; the 
house was thronged, to hear his elegant sermons, delivered in a captivating, 
graceful style of oratory. At the age of twenty-one, he was elected a Profes- 
sor in Harvard University ; which office he accepted, with the condition that 
he might visit Europe. Having travelled over the most interesting spots, par- 
ticularly Greece and Rome, he returned with his mind richly stored, and com- 



54 M E M O I 11 O V 

It was no common effort to meet such men in debate, in the 
contests of patriotism, and in all measures to promote the nation- 
til weal. Mr. Binges was conscious that great obstacles were 
to be surmounted, that perseverance, industry, and ambition 
must be actively exercised in that extensive field of intellectual 
trial. No man of limited capacity can excel in the Congress of 
the United States. To be great there, he must possess the true 
elements of greatness. He must love his country, be familiar 
with its institutions, its laws, its diversified relations. He must 
know the policy of other governments, tbe nice points about 
which they may dispute, and possess a union of moral, political, 
and intellectual power, which will arm him against opposition ; 
provide him with resources to meet the subtle reasonings of 
sophistry, and enable him to plead with a strong voice, for the 
rights, liberty, and future glory of his country. 

A few weeks after Congress assembled, a bill was introduced 
in the House of Representatives, proposing that the Supreme 
Court of the United States " shall hereafter consist of a Chief 
Justice, and nine associate Justices ; and if necessary, three ad- 
ditional associate Justices. That the seventh Judicial Circuit 
of the United States shall hereafter consist of the districts of 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois ; the eighth Circuit, of the district 
of Kentucky and Missouri ; the ninth Circuit, of the district of 
Tennessee and Alabama ; and tbe tenth Circuit, of tbe district 
of Louisiana and Mississippi." So much of any act or acts of 
Congress vesting in the District Courts of the United States, in 
the districts of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, 

menced the duties of his Professorship. About this time, he assumed the 
responsibility of Editor of the North American Review ; and by his intellectu- 
al efforts in that periodical, elevated the character of our literature, lie has 
probably written and published a greater number of orations and addresses than 
any living individual. In 1825, he was chosen to represent the district of 
Middlesex, Massachusetts, in the Congress of the United States. In that sphere 
he is known for his accomplishments and integrity. Whenever he speaks he 
always commands attention, by his accurate statement of facts and principles, 
his harmonious sentences, and correct elocution. If men resembling him in 
character, participated more frequently in our public councils, they would be 
in higher repute for patriotism, learning, and virtue. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 55 

and Louisiana, the powers and jurisdiction of Circuit Courts, it 
proposed to repeal ; and provided that there should be, thereafter, 
Circuit Courts for said districts, to be composed of the Justice of 
the Supreme Court assigned to the Circuit, to which such dis- 
tricts respectively belonged, and of the District Judge of said 
district. 

The resolution was subsequently modified, so as " to instruct 
the Committee on the Judiciary, so to amend the bill, as to dis- 
charge the Judges of the Supreme Court from attendance on 
the Circuit Courts of the United States, and further to provide 
an uniform, efficient system for the administration of justice in 
the inferior courts of the United States." 

The terms of the resolution indicate that a great question was 
at issue ; no less than the Judiciary of the United States. The 
President, in his annual message to Congress in 1825, adverted 
to the subject. It was referred at that session to the appropri- 
ate committee ; which, in their report, discussed the reform re- 
quired, (as they said,) by the exigencies of the country, and 
proposed by bill, material alterations in the whole system. 

The question engaged the finest talent in the House. It was 
upon this topic, that Mr. Surges made his first speech. 1 His 
observations were confined to the bill introduced by the Com- 
mittee, and the resolution before quoted, submitted by Mr. 
Mercer, of Virginia. This is reputed to be one of his happiest 
efforts ; uniting judgment, power and eloquence. Antece- 
dent to this period, little was known of Mr. Burges, beyond the 
limits of his own State; for the scenes of private life had been 
more welcome to him than the theatre of political contention. 
He entered the House of Representatives, therefore, with no 
prepossessions on either side. By his commanding powers of 
mind and character only, could he be known ; and by them only 
he advanced in popularity. When, on the important subject 
of the Judiciary, he rose to address the House, his very appear- 
ance inspired respect. 3 A man was now speaking, whose locks 

1 See Part II. for this speech. 

2 The personal appearance of Mr. Burges indicates a number of years beyond 
his real age. 



56 M E M O I It O F 

were whitened by many a winter's frost ; and from whose lips, 
flowed lessons of experience ; by whose bending form, and me- 
lodious tones, and deliberate enunciation, and captivating man- 
ner, all minds were arrested ; and by whom, the attention of all 
was ri vetted, from the beginning to the end of his speech. 
When he was pleading for the independence of the Judiciary, 
that shield of our national union, and imploring Congress not 
to enter the hallowed temple, by any act of profanation ; when 
he urged them to extend protection over the judicial edifice, 
" that it may subserve the wants, and satisfy the requirements 
of these increasing States, and the multiplying millions of this 
great nation, until the American Eagle shall, with one wing, 
winnow the breezes of the Atlantic, and with the other, hover 
over the quiet waters of the Pacific ; until the colossal power of 
the Republic, standing on the lofty mountains of this continent, 
shall, with one hand, extend the olive branch to the peaceful 
nations of the earth, and with the other wave the sword of jus- 
tice, over the satisfied and tranquil citizens of these widely 
extended regions," — it was then a veteran member exclaimed — 
" That speech is one of the greatest displays of eloquence ever 
made in this hall." From that time the reputation of Mr. 
Burges was acknowledged in a wider sphere ; in his increasing 
fame, the nation participated. A few days after this address, 
which was the only one made by him during the session, he 
was attacked by the asthma, to which he is subject, and he 
could not perform any arduous labor for the remainder of the 
session. 



CHAPTER V. 

Death of Mr. Burges's daughter. — He is re-elected to Congress. — Death of hia 
other daughters. — He speaks on the Revolutionary Claims. — Mr. Mallary's 
Resolution. — He replies to Mr. McDuffie. — Address before the American 
Institute of New-York. — Death of his son. 

For many years, Mr. Burges's life had flowed in a smooth 
current. His family circle was more and more endeared to 
him, and its treasures satisfied his fondest hopes. But soon 
they were to be darkened, and cut down, as it were, in their 
blossom. In 1826, his second daughter died, in the twenty- 
first year of her age. Accomplished in mind, beautiful in her 
person, winning in her disposition and manners, a fond and 
cherished object of a father's care, and a mother's tenderest 
solicitude, she was taken in the day-spring of life, from that 
father's protection, and laid down to sleep in her grave. To 
one possessed of delicate feelings, like Mr. Burges, this event 
could not but make a deep impression. The affliction seemed 
almost too poignant to be borne. In early life, he had shared 
the attendant ills of obscurity and disappointment ; in later 
years, he had struggled against other misfortunes, and they 
were heroically surmounted. But, when death came, and 
seized a beloved child, his spirit was bent, like the reed by the 
storm. 

In August, 1827, he was re-elected a Member of the House 
of Representatives of the United States, without opposition. 
This event in his public life, was followed by another and 
another domestic bereavement. The following September, his 
youngest daughter died, in her fourteenth year. In October, his 
eldest daughter died, in her twenty-third year. Three children 
were thus in a few weeks consigned to the tomb. It seemed to 
him, " that nature's law was reversed." He thought that these 



58 MEMOIR O F 

children would go to the last home of their father ; not the 
father to the graves of his daughters. When time had assuaged 
the bitterness of sorrow, then, like a Christian, he was reconciled; 
and was consoled by the reflection, that their pure spirits dwelt 
with a Father in Heaven. 

At the commencement of the session of 1827-8, Mr. Burges 
did not mingle in the debates of the House. Bowed down by 
affliction, and confined for weeks by sickness, when able to 
attend in the Capitol, he could not enter with his wonted vigor 
and enthusiasm into the many questions then engaging Con- 
gress. As Chairman of the Committee on Military Pensions, 
he submitted a bill, accompanied with an elaborate report, on 
the claims of the surviving officers of the revolutionary army. 
In January, he addressed the House in explanation of the 
report, and in favor of some pecuniary grant to the venerable 
survivors of the army. That speech is replete with strong 
arguments, and beautiful illustrations. The army which suffer- 
ed so much for the liberty of human nature, he contended, ought 
to receive from Congress, some remuneration for their services. 1 

Mr. Burges desired that a law should be enacted for the 
revolutionary soldiers, more considerable in amount, and more 
extensive in application, than that which finally prevailed. He 
wished to provide not only for the living men who had fought 
during the w T ar, but also for the widows of such as had died 
before their country had given them any such testimonials of 
gratitude. 

A resolution was introduced at this session, 1827-8, by Mr. 
Mallary, of Vermont, to amend the bill on Wool and Woollens. 
The question, as presented to the House, involved the great 
Woollen trade of the United States. Familiar with its princi- 
ples and details, and knowing its importance to every section of 
the country, Mr. Burges spoke on the resolution. The debate 
was continued with great ability, for many weeks. In its pro- 
gress, there was a sharp encounter between himself and Mr. 
McDuffie of South Carolina, who came upon Mr. Burges 
without warning. The latter knew not, that his antagonist 

1 See Part II. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 59 

had taken the least exception to any remarks of his, on Mr. 
Mallary's resolution. Mr. McDuffie arose with great self-pos- 
session, and called upon the reporters " to mark him, and write 
his speech in their books ;" and then poured upon Mr. Burges 
a storm of invective, which turned every eye towards him. 
Mr. Burges listened with surprise and astonishment, but not 
with impatience ; and if the Speaker had permitted him to 
continue, Mr. McDuffie would have felt yet deeper mortifi- 
cation. 

Mr. Burges said : — " I claim the right to reply to what the 
gentleman from South Carolina has been permitted to allege 
against me. The pamphlet so much abused by that gentle- 
man, is the speech which I began here in my place, and which, 
had it not been for want of health, I should have finished. It 
was then written. It was spoken, so far as it was spoken, as it 
was written, except the reply to the Chairman, as it is now 
published. I did then, as I do now, denounce the honorable 
gentleman for a gross plagiarism on the Boston Report. It was 
then done in his presence. I would not rob the gentleman of 
any of his claims to originality. Since he came into public life, 
he has certainly discovered a mind not altogether barren ; and 
can call up a numerous family of political sophisms, legitimately, 
and in all their features, peculiarly his own. More than this 
I cannot allow him. His teeming genius could never have 
produced ' A Report on the State of the Finances,' had there 
never been any intercourse between him and the masculine 
absurdity of the Boston Report. The gentleman accuses me of 
making this accusation against him insidiously. It is no part 
of my character to do so ; and the gentleman knows that his 
allegation has no connexion with the fact. I said it openly on 
this floor. I have put it in print, and I sent a printed copy of 
the whole speech to him, for his perusal. Had the present 
effusion of his genius and gentlemanly accomplishments, been 
poured out upon me then, I should have looked for the source 
of it, in the fiery and combustible elements of his nature. The 
generously passionate temper of a Southern clime, can furnish 
no such apology for that cautious malevolence, which lies in 



60 MEMOIR OF 

wait ten days and nights ; and then suddenly uncoils and aims 
her fangs at the unsuspecting adversary. The gentleman says 
I have some character for learning. I thank his courtesy ; but 
would have preferred the approbation of a less questionable 
authority. Whatsoever progress he may have made in science 
or letters, he seems not to have adopted the style of speaking, 
common to scholars and gentlemen. He who could use terms 
of vulgar abuse, such as he has used to me, before 'this House, 
and this nation, places himself below the reach of any rebuke 
from my tongue." 

The Speaker here interposed, and Mr. Burges took his seat. 
Mr. McDuffie again rose, and repeated his attack. When he 
had concluded, Mr. Burges took the floor, and replied : 

" I know not if ' the grave rebuke, severe in youthful beauty,' 
of the gentleman from South Carolina, should seal my lips. 
Had his rude and vulgar assault, any of the ordinary apologies 
of suddenly excited and uncontrolable anger, I could pass it by, 
like any other freak of passionate boyhood. He has carefully 
removed all the steps by which he descended, and rendered it 
impossible for excuse or palliation to follow him. The words 
uttered by me were uttered here in my place, and exactly as 
they were then written, and g are now printed. I then accused him 
of the plagiarism which has given him so much annoyance. 
He neither interrupted, nor gave me any reply. This was on 
the 29th of March. He daily met me with that kind of court- 
esy which the nature of our very slight acquaintance authorized. 
Why not rebuke me then, when the offence was fresh upon me ? 
' He reserved himself,' he says, e till this time.' For ten days, the 
honorable gentleman has been breathing over the embers of his 
smouldering malice ; and enkindling the sooty magazine of a 
heart never remarkable for much generosity of purpose, or 
kindliness of movement. He has doubtless spent sundry hours 
of this time, in the pleasant exercise of selecting suitable phrases 
wherein to set his bright and sparkling thoughts. This parade 
of preparation has been made, and the stenographers called to 
* mark him, and write his speech in their book/ for the very 
valiant purpose of abusing * a very old man.' He says I have 



TRISTAM B URGES. 61 

stated ' falsehoods and uttered slanders,' concerning his author- 
ship of his Report on the Finances. Is this the result of all his 
parade and * dreadful note of preparation V Why, Sir, a sturdy 
beggar, had he been equally regardless of decency, might have 
said the same things extempore. He is my elder in parlia- 
mentary life ; but I cannot persuade myself into any imitation 
of his rules of decorum, or his manner of practising them in 
debate, either at other times or on this occasion. It would, and 
the gentleman certainly knows it, be very unbecoming in me, to 
say what might be very appropriately said of him. The gen- 
tleman seems to claim the whole right to himself. Few men 
would, I believe, pirate upon this property. The fee simple of 
the honorable gentleman, in his principles, opinions, and 
thoughts, together with his own manner of expressing them, 
will never be feloniously invaded by any person ' of sound mind, 
and having the fear of God before his eyes.' He says, * what 
he is, he is himself.' Why, Sir, I do not question this. He is 
himself ; and neither he, or any other person will ever mistake 
him for anybody else. The honorable gentleman need not fear 
being lost in the ordinary samples of existence. His individu- 
ality is secure. It is very probable there is but this one specimen 
in the whole mass of moral, intellectual, and physical being. 
With what other thing could- he be confounded ! Men would 
as soon mistake the fiery elements, angry action, and ferocious 
visage of a wild-cat, for the gentle blood and peaceful counte- 
nance of the lamb. 

" The gentleman alleges against me, gross ignorance of ordi- 
nary books on political economy. Adam Smith has, I know, 
in one short passage, asserted, that impost enables the home 
producer to add the amount of such impost to the price of his 
products of the same kind. This is but a dictum, and all the 
reasoning of his system confutes it, as a general principle. — 
Ricardo has expressly stated, that when impost amounts to pro- 
tection, and gives the home market to the home products, do- 
mestic competition reduces the market to the natural price. The 
gentleman has, in his Report, stated that all impost is a tax on 
consumption. Was the gentleman ignorant of the great prin- 



62 MEMOIR OF 

ciple of these books ; or did he, knowingly, misstate their doc- 
trines ? I cannot believe he can shelter himself behind a want 
of knowledge. 

" In the speech which I have published, the true principles of 
the laws of imposts for revenue, encouragement, and protection, 
are stated and illustrated. Impost operates as encouragement, 
when it raises the price of the imported product, and enables the 
domestic producer to sell his product, being of equal quality, at 
the same price, in the same market. When impost amounts to 
protection, and gives the domestic market to the domestic pro- 
duct, importation ceases, revenue ceases, and domestic compe- 
tition reduces price to the cost of producing and bringing the 
domestic product to market. Cotton wool, is perfectly protected. 
It has the whole domestic market. Impost stands at three 
cents a pound. Does the producer receive of the consumer of 
cotton, this amount of impost 1 If the impost were one hundred 
instead of three cents, would cotton be any dearer ? What pro- 
duct in the United States, perfectly protected, is dearer, for the 
amount of impost by which it is protected? Are shoes, boots, 
nails, gunpowder, cabinet ware, carriages, cotton cloths ? I call 
on any gentleman to name the article which is enhanced in 
price, by one cent, for all the impost for protection. 

" If no protected article be dearer, from being protected by 
impost, how is the price enhanced by such impost for protection ? 
If it be not dearer, how is it a tax on consumption ? This is the 
principle of that speech, and it sweeps from under the gentleman 
all foundation for his ' Report on the state of the Finances.' The 
doctrine is absurd that impost for protection is a tax on con- 
sumption. I put it to the conscience of the gentleman, how, 
knowing these truths, he dares thus to sin against the light of 
his own mind 1 How he dared to grasp that smouldering and 
half-extinguished fire-brand, and whirling it in the air to gather 
flame, toss the blazing torch into all that is combustible in this 
nation? If I might, without impropriety, I would request gen- 
tlemen to read that speech. I have there explained where im- 
post is encouragement and a tax on consumption. Sugar and 
molasses are now almost the only products under such imposts. 



TRISTAM JB URGES. 63 

It was wisely laid upon them to the intent, that these incipient 
productions might be fostered, and finally, supply the whole 
market. Domestic sugar and molasses must then, if a small 
advance in impost shall give protection to the market, supply 
the whole consumption, and be sold as cheap as they are in 
Cuba. These are the doctrines of that speech, and I did intend 
it to counteract the baneful effect of the Report of that gentleman. 
I have said he has possessed himself of it by plagiarism. It is 
true. The character will be fixed upon him by the nation. 
Boston is entitled to the original honors of this political absurdity. 

"When I am called upon by a gentleman of his attempted 
standing in this House, I can only wish that I could control that 
fund of cheap expenditure to the gentleman, by which he has 
scattered six thousand of these empoisoned political tracts, and 
mingled them with the political aliment of the nation. I would 
then, and I will now, spread the antidote co-extensively with 
the poison. 

" He has said, I aimed at political effect. So indeed I did. 
And further, I do believe, that if this administration should be 
followed by another, governed by the doctrines of that Report, 
and abandoning the policy of the American System, the inde- 
pendence of these United States will soon be prostrated. In 
that event, he who should have effected that catastrophe, by a 
propagation of the doctrines of the Report on the state of the 
Finances, will have entitled himself to an immortality of infamy, 
by far more execrable than that of him who burned the temple 
of Ephesus." 

[Here Mr. Burges was directed to take his seat — which he 
did — saying, however :] 

"Sir, I claim my right of reply. I have but just begun — I 
do not resign my right to disabuse myself of this rude allegation 
from the gentleman — I may be compelled to silence ; but not to 
an acknowledgement of the justice of such compulsion." 

The American Institute of the City of New-York, invited 
Mr. Burges to deliver an address at their Annual Fair. The 
request was accompanied by expressions of merited respect for 
his efforts in aid of a national system of protection and improve- 



64 MEMOIROF 

ment. As he observed in the beginning of the Address, the 
principles of the Institute embrace every section of our country ; 
and like the dew from Heaven, distil their genial influence upon 
every field, and invite the labor of every interest and all classes 
of American society. When, therefore, Mr. Burges recollected 
those principles, so dear and invaluable ; when he remembered 
that he was called to speak in the city, where enterprize and 
industry are unrivalled ; where are to be seen monuments of 
wealth and taste ; he justly considered Labor an appropriate 
theme of discourse, on such an occasion, before a society pur- 
posely united for its encouragement. 

Whoever looks with the eye of a statesman, and the hope of 
a patriot, at the operations of labor, will acknowledge it to be a 
great instrument of wealth and power. It is the purpose of this 
Address, to examine Labor either as abandoned for other pur- 
suits, by ancient nations ; or cherished as the only source of 
subsistence, by modern communities ; to look into the theories 
of some philosophers concerning its nature and powers, and to 
discuss some objections to that encouragement given to it, by 
the habits and the laws of our own country. 

That country, is a distinguished example of a nation estab- 
lished on the principles of Labor ; and illustrates more succes- 
fully than any other, the power and progress of cultivation. Its 
founders really and practically believed, that Labor alone gave 
man a title to bread. They acted upon the principle, that no 
nation could be pure in morals, elevated in piety, prosperous and 
perpetual, unless its subsistence, and the sources of its prosperity 
were derived from Labor. Looking back upon the nations of 
the earth, he inquires, why they have arisen, flourished, decayed, 
and passed out of existence % Not because they were nations ; 
for all contain the seminal principles of youth, decay, and dis- 
solution ; but because they were begun by violence, extended 
by war, and fed and sustained by plunder. 

"Why, it may be asked, were men and nations, so long 
deluded by the charms of illegitimate wealth, and the splendor 
of meretricious glory ? When one of those conquering nations 
had, like a baleful meteor, blazed on the world, and been put 



TRISTAM BURGES. §5 

out ; why did not men believe, or imagine, or so much as dream 
that each flaming successor might in the same manner be 
extinguished 1 The answer must be found in ourselves. Man 
is not more certainly born to a frail and finite existence on earth, 
than to a heritage of passions ; which, if not regulated by 
instruction and prudence, will tyrannize over his destinies. In 
the undisciplined man, you will find insatiable love of power, 
boundless ambition, anxious solicitude for perilous enterprize, 
and daring adventure ; and all these inflamed by a passion for 
notoriety and the hope of doing deeds which shall fill the eye 
and move the tongue of the world. These passions have made 
men, heroes, chieftains, conquerors ; while those who could be 
moved by nothing better, have been lured to their standard, 
some by the mere scent of blood, and others in the hope of plun- 
der. One race of such men produces another. Alexander 
worshipped on the tomb of Achilles. Cresar wept over the 
statue of Alexander. What were history, poetry, painting, 
sculpture ? The monuments of conquest. Subjugated commu- 
nities ceased to exist, and were forgotten. Nations were with- 
out experience, concerning the fate of those who had gone 
before them ; and if a knowledge of that fate reached their 
leaders, it did but place more peril in their paths, and enhanced 
the glory of achievement : l Short be my date, if deathless my 
renown.' 

" If, from necessity, or any other cause, any thing like moral 
principle were found in the municipal relations of men, no such 
regulation had found its way into an}' code of nations. The 
teachings of wisdom, and the voice of inspiration, were alike un- 
heeded by them. 'Sic utere tuo, ut non alienum LaedasJ found no 
place even in the laws of Christian nations, until many centu- 
ries after the Saviour of the World had promulgated this same 
principle in the schools of Palestine. If, during the last eigh- 
teen centuries, the condition of nations is ameliorated, it is not 
because men, admonished by experience, have been deterred 
from violence by the fate of communities which had flourished 
by plunder, and been destroyed by reprisal. 



66 MEMOIR O I 

"What, then produced the wonderful difference between the 
ancient and modern states and kingdoms? What wrought. 
Europe and the New World into a community of nations ? What 
are the limits of this great family 1 The creed of Christianity ; 
the parental theology, the hallowed morals of Him who, though 
illustriously the Son of the Most High ; yet was on earth the 
meek and lowly messenger of peace and good will to nations. 
I have said this for no purpose of mingling sacred with secular 
things; but with the intention, after a notice of the great 
changes wrought in the character of nations, to state honestly 
the true philosophical cause of them. * Do unto others as ye 
would that they should do unto you.' ' He who takes the sword, 
shall perish by the sword.' These two divine aphorisms have, 
through the silent lapse of ages, come to the hearing of nations, 
and changed their character from piracy and plunder, to labor 
and economy ; from a condition of hostility, to a state of peace 
and brotherhood, uniting under all their divers tongues in one 
common canon of petition to ' Our Father in Heaven.' The 
great code of nations has thus been settled ; and by all Christian 
communities established on the principles of Christian recipro- 
city. By this code, conquest for acquisition is not admitted ; 
plunder for subsistence, whether by many or few, is alike the 
crime of the robber or the pirate ; slavery, the last perquisite of 
iron ages, war and despotism, have been gradually relinquished, 
and will be entirely removed from among all Christian people, 
whenever wisdom, humanity, and patriotism, can effect the re- 
moval, without peril to the peace of nations, or violence to the 
rules of private justice. If these principles should extend, and 
what shall prevent their extension 1 if they do extend ; and will 
they not, when the tongues, and pens, and types of so many 
millions are hourly laboring to pour them into the ear, or spread 
them before the eye of all nations 1 and if these many and 
mighty efforts may be successful, the trade of violence shall 
cease under the whole heaven ; conquerors, if any arise, be 
chased like beasts of prey from the face of the earth ; the world, 
so long a seat of war, conquest, slavery, and despotism, shall be 
made the dwelling-place of peace, freedom, and prosperity, un- 



T R I S T A 31 BURGES. 



67 



der the dominion of that righteousness which not only exalts 
but preserves nations. Men are now gradually, in submission 
to the will of the Creator, coming into a condition of Labor. 
They have heard the voice of inspiration, read the record of ex- 
perience, and learned the laws of the Eternal. By these, human 
subsistence is united to human labor. In ages gone by, they 
have been separated by fraud and violence ; but when our 
whole race, looking to the infinite source of their existence, shall, 
as with one voice, say, ' Thy will be done,' the era of violence 
shall terminate, and the age of labor be universally established." 
A class of philosophers would persuade us, that much of 
the labor of others, and especially that of instruction, is mere 
legendary idleness, and of no value or utility. Mr. B urges 
asks, if it is more laborious to till the field, than to toil in the 
acquisition and diffusion of science ; to exercise the skill of 
handicraft, than to answer the requisitions of professional labor? 
Those who teach our infancy, those who instruct us from the 
cradle to the grave ; the schoolmaster ; the divine. "Pause a 
moment ; what were our nature without these auxiliaries of 
the best acquisitions of this world, and the brightest hopes of 
another ] Would you dismiss them from their labors ] Rather 
stop the plough, unbend the sail, throw the loom out of gear. 
Better than live without letters, morals, religion, that this were 
the last human generation. Let the shade of the forest again 
touch the margin of the ocean .; and wild beasts once more prey 
or browse over every acre of the New World." 

After a general discussion of the principles and details of this 
subject — that is, the fountain of all national prosperity, the as- 
surance given by the laws, that every citizen shall enjoy the 
emolument of his own labor — the Address concludes with these 
sentiments: "That when vain ambition and lawless avarice 
can no longer wage war, or lure nations to plunder; and time 
shall have consumed the last marble marked with the name of 
a conqueror, then, communities will have been counselled in the 
great doctrines of self-subsistence, and men become the true 
friends of their race. Nations, formed and sustained on the 
principles of Labor, will secure the establishment of justice, fa- 



% 



68 



MEMOIR OF, &c. 



cilitate the great mysteries of human toil, illustrate science, per- 
fect arts, disseminate letters, purify morals, elevate piety." 
Read the history of those nations, and on their brightest page 
will be written an inscription, as beautiful as that on the monu- 
ment which tells the traveller, of departed glory." 

In the month of September, 1828, death again visited his 
family circle. His eldest son, Welcome Arnold, died in the 
twenty-eighth year of his age. He graduated at Brown Univer- 
sity, received the first honors of his class, and entered Iris father's 
office to pursue the study of Law. Having finished the usual 
preparatory course, he W T as admitted to practice in Rhode-Island. 
To a fine mind, were united extensive classical accomplish- 
ments, a chastened taste in polite literature, and judgment 
matured beyond his years. As a lawyer, he was exact in the 
knowledge of the principles of his profession ; courteous, and 
patient in application. As an advocate, he was remarkably 
successful, for one so young. He was the pride of his father, 
who had labored with assiduity to perfect his professional edu- 
cation ; but while that father was anticipating the fruits of his 
care, how little did he know of the secrets of futurity. 

In the brief period of fourteen months, Mr. Burges was called 
to mourn over the graves of four children ; taken from him in 
the morning of life, full of promise and joy. Well might he 
exclaim, " Who knows the fate of his children's bones ? Who 
hath the oracle of their ashes, and whither are they to be scat- 
tered r 



CHAPTER VI. 

The claim of M. D'Aute'rive.— The debate upon it.— Mr. Burges's Speech.— 
Extracts. 

A Bill was before the House of Representatives in January, 
1829, for the relief of Marigny D'Auterive, together with an 
amendment proposed by a member from Louisiana, (Mr. Gur- 
ley,) " to pay for injury done to a slave, and for medical attend- 
ance upon him." 

The claimant asked from the United States, ten hundred and 
ninety-four dollars. Of this sum, seven hundred and fifty-five 
dollars had been allowed by the Committee, and the balance 
rejected. Twenty -four dollars of this balance, was the amount 
of a private surgeon's bill, for attending and curing the claim- 
ant's slave " Warwick," who was wounded while working in 
the trenches before New-Orleans, on the first of January, 1815. 
The second item of the balance was fifteen dollars, for lost time, 
being one month, while Warwick was under the care of the 
surgeon. Two hundred dollars, the last item in the account, 
was claimed, because the slave was made so much less valuable 
by his wounds. The Committee on Claims rejected the sur- 
geon's bill; because, all persons wounded in the service, if carried 
to the army hospital, are attended and cured, if they can be 
cured, by regular surgeons, without any private expense ; but 
all who choose not to go there, when in their power, must be 
attended and cured at their own charge. The other items were 
rejected, because such persons, have never been considered as 
property in such cases, to be paid for by the United States. 

The amendment offered by (he member from Louisiana, re- 
stored these disallowed items to the account. Although the sum 
in question was exceedingly small, yet the principles directly 
involved, and those introduced into the debate, were perilous to 



70 M E M O I It O F 

the repose and liberties of tlie country. By sustaining the 
amendment, the House would have decided, that slaves are 
property ; and then in such cases as the one under considera- 
tion, to be paid for by the United States. 

From this brief statement of the question, and the various 
points made by members in debate, the discussion assumed an 
interesting, yet alarming tendency; and engaged the most 
prominent speakers from all sections of the country. Many 
lamented the wide range of the debate, and all, the spirit mani- 
fested in stirring up a question, which, it was feared, might, at 
no distant period, lead to consequences fatal to our national con- 
federacy. As such perilous principles were involved, it is not 
singular that an excitement was manifested among members. 
The South had been violent ; the North endeavored to assuage 
the angry elements, by argument and persuasion. Its power 
and eloquence were nearly expended : it was then Mr. Burges 
spoke, commanding general attention ; and invoked the spirit 
of patriotism, to come over the House and dwell there, that the 
sanctuary of Freedom might be protected. 

Previous to this time, Mr. Burges had spoken but twiee on 
any important question. His health had been exceedingly del- 
icate ; and for the greater part of the former session, he had been 
confined to his chamber. Added to which, his domestic afflic- 
tions seemed to paralyze mental effort, and to make him feel in- 
different to fame, and the pursuits of ambition. It is true, he 
had spoken on the Judiciary Bill. He had pleaded, too, for the 
survivors of the revolutionary army — the venerable band who 
won their glory in the stormy years of war: he had implored that 
the protecting arm of Government, might, " like the bright bow 
of Heaven," visit them with tokens of relief — that their descend- 
ants for whom was established a broad basis of independence, 
"might give them one look of kindness, and pour one beam of 
gladness on the melancholy twilight of their days." 

But this was the first time, except on the questions referred 
to, that he had displayed his strong intellect in debate. Mem- 
bers who had heard him on either of those occasions, expressed 
confidence in his abilities. When, however, he concluded the 



TRISTAMBURGES. 71 

argument on the claim of Marigny D'Auterive, admiration per- 
vaded the whole assembly. Although men of commanding 
talents and moral influence, mingled in the deliberations of that 
Congress, yet, Mr. Bulges was among the first in the graces of 
oratory, the science of government, varied learning, and firm, 
unyielding patriotism. 

The whole duty of a member of Congress in relation to pri- 
vate claims is, to hear patiently, and decide justly. The Report 
of the Committee, the explanations of the Chairman, and the 
discussions on the part of members whose constituents are im- 
mediately interested in the claim, furnish all the facts and evi- 
dence necessary for a correct decision. In relation, however, to 
the claim of Marigny D'Auterive, the amendment offered by 
Mr. Gurley introduced a new question, one which few who 
took part in important debates, could refuse to discuss. It 
is natural to conclude, therefore, as before intimated, that upon 
such a topic, principles of constitutional construction, dangerous 
to popular rights and repose, would be introduced. They were 
introduced, and urged with all the violence peculiar to interested 
advocates. The discussion had created an excitement in the 
Southern section of the Union. People in that quarter were 
surprised that the legality of a claim to such persons as are, by 
their laws, held to servitude or labor, should be questioned. 
This excitement originated in a misapprehension ; for no such 
opinions were uttered during the debate. The question itself 
as discussed, was not a demand for services rendered, nor for 
goods delivered ; but, for deterioration of a slave, produced by 
an accident in the service of the United States. 
Mr. Burges commenced his speech thus : — 
" Sir, before any further consideration of this subject, permit 
me to solicit your attention to some examination of some of 
the things, which have been pressed into this debate, and 
associated with it. Every person who hears what I say now r , 
and every person who may hear what I have said in this 
debate, and who has any interest in the kind of property con- 
nected with this claim, is, by the Constitution of the United 
States, and by the laws of the several States where he reside?, 



72 MEMOIR OF 

entitled to be fully quieted in the possession of that interest. 
No gentleman who has spoken here has questioned their rights, 
or intimated a wish to disturb their possession, or call into dis- 
cussion their title. No man here has claimed for the Congress 
of the United States the constitutional right to legislate concern- 
ing the nature, the acquisition, the tenure, transfer, or evidence, 
of any kind of property, in any one of the several States. I 
pray of you, Sir, to let me be at pains, and task the patience of 
this House, while I endeavor to show the ulter absurdity of any 
attempt at any such kind of legislation. All property in any 
one of these United States, is comprehended in either things 
real, or things personal. Things real are those legal relations 
existing between lands and the owners of them. The fee sim- 
ple is the highest order of this relation. Different, complex, 
and conditional relations of this class, require no description. 
Other relations are free-hold, and less than free-hold, for a 
greater or less number of years. To these may be added estates 
in possession or in expectancy ; and as well those owned by a 
single, as a greater number of tenants. The tenure by which 
the several relations to lands are holden, the title by which they 
may be claimed, and the manner in which titles shall be proved, 
are each large departments of jurisprudence, and have exercised 
the best skill and most profound wisdom of legislation, in other 
countries, and in each of these United States. Property in 
things personal, is that estate, which, in this country, we may 
have in any thing other than land. It is either in possession or 
in action. You either have it in your own hands, or in the 
hands of those to whom you have entrusted it. Your goods, 
wares, and merchandise — your flocks, herds, and the fruits of 
your lands ; the instruments of your agricultural, mechanic, 
manufacturing, or commercial industry; in short, the avails of 
your land, the results of your capital, the proceeds of your labor, 
are one great portion of individual wealth, called property in 
things personal. Another great portion of it consists in the in- 
finite variety of claims which men have on other men, for 
money, goods, or labor, either by force of contracts, or by enact- 
ments or adjudications of law. Among these are notes, bills. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 73 

bonds, records, together with the infinite variety of legal impli-* 
cations, by which labor, goods, or money, are due from one man 
to another. To these should be added the labor and service 
due by any one person to any other person, either by contract 
or for a limited time, or by law, and for time unlimited. 

"Now, Sir, which class of all these various descriptions of 
property, in either things real, or things personal, falls within 
the legislative jurisdiction of this Congress 1 Concerning which 
one class of them all, or what article in any one of them, can we 
enact any law, in any degree or respect altering its nature, 
or tenure, or title ; the manner of acquiring, or transferring, or 
the evidence whereby it shall be secured in possession of one 
person, or reclaimed and recovered, when in the possession of 
another 1 Where are our statutes concerning tenures, and title 
deeds, descents and devises, and distributions 1 Where those of 
contracts, either parol or in writing; whether simple or sealed] 
Where, in fine, are those codes of laws, under which persons 
are bound to labor or service, in any one of the several States in 
this Union 1 Ail these laws are found, and sufficiently numer- 
ous, for all the exigencies of property, or persons, in each of all 
these States ; either in the pure civil, common, or canon law ; 
or as the same may, for greater convenience, have been, from 
time to time, altered by any of the respective Legislatures of 
these States. In the statute, and other books of legal learning 
of these States, and not in the statute books of the United States, 
are such laws to be found. Truly, Sir, why should they be 
found in the statute books of the United States, when it is clear 
as the light, that all these matters and things are of the several 
States, and not of the United States legislative jurisdiction ? 

" What gentleman, Sir, on this floor, has claimed for the 
Congress of the United States, the right to enact any such 
laws] Not one. All must disclaim all such right. For good 
reason, too ; because the Constitution has given us no such 
right. Except concerning the exclusive jurisdiction of ceded 
territory, the legislative power of Congress seems confined to 
raising and disbursing revenue, for common defence and general 
welfare ; together with the legislation incidental and auxiliary 



74 M E M O 1 It OF 

>to those great objects. Who, then, Sir, will contend — who has 
contended — that Congress can make any law altering, or im- 
pugning, or invalidating, those laws of any of the States creating 
that legal relation called property, between any of the good people 
of those States, and any person, matter, or thing 1 Why, then, 
this excitement ? All men may sit quietly, in all and each of 
the States, under the protection of their laws; for one kind of 
property is as perfectly secure to its owner as another. If, 
however, any jealousy of Northern People still exists in the 
minds of Southern People, be in patience with me : I will make 
one effort more to remove all cause for such feeling. It is 
true, laws cannot always protect, because they cannot always 
control. Morals, manners, habits, interest, make men what 
they are ; and, when these are known, men are known : and, in 
any given state of events, their actions may become, with cer- 
tainty and safety, a subject of calculation. Laws, indeed, may 
slumber ; morals are vigilant as consciousness ; interest watch- 
ful as the principle of self-preservation. For the purposes of 
what I would now say, the whole Northern communities may be 
regarded in one or another of three descriptions of persons. To 
neither of these classes can any motive, inconsistent with fair 
integrity, be objected. The first class is least numerous. They, 
of all men, think and act the least consequentially. If the 
thing they would have done be, by itself, honest and desirable, 
their mental vision never comprehends those eternal adjuncts of 
all human events, the things which must go before, and the 
things which must follow after them. They have, indeed, zeal 
— unbounded zeal — but they are entirely without that knowl- 
edge and wisdom indispensable to the accomplishment of any 
great enterprise. Slavery they regard as an evil, and Freedom 
as a good — indeed, as all wise, good, and prudent men in our 
country regard them. Immediate and universal emancipation 
is their only remedy for every case and condition of slavery. 
They say nothing, and think nothing, of the legal rights of 
masters thus at once extinguished ; nor ask what condition of 
servitude could equal the wretchedness of a million and a half 
of slaves at once thrown out of the employment and the support, 



TRISTAM BURGES. 75 

the protection and control of their masters. We need not be 
detained by a consideration of what this class of men would do ; 
because they can do nothing. Their number is small, their wis- 
dom small, and their influence still more inconsiderable. A few 
of these men may be found in the North ; but I believe they are 
more numerous in the Southern parts of the Union. 

" The second class should be denominated philanthropists. 
They would give freedom to all men ; but they would violate 
the rights of none. They are the Howards of our country. 
As he did not make the pilgrimage of Europe to break gaols 
and liberate prisoners, but to make prisons the abodes of human- 
ity, so would they not violate the rights of masters, but amelio- 
rate the condition of slaves. Whatever they do, they will do it 
with justice to all men ; nor would they purchase what they so 
much desire, the freedom of all, at the expense of those higher 
and more desirable objects, the principles of morals and religion. 
The Colonization Societies of our country are of this class. I 
know men, who, though they may not be united with these So- 
cieties, yet are they laboring in the same great cause. They 
are called Friends ; and well do they merit the denomination. 
Their charities, like their devotions, though silent, are fervent 
and sincere. The slaves which they liberate are purchased 
with their own money, and sent, with all needful aid, to colonize 
their native land. Indeed, this great class of philanthropists 
look forward to the gradual and entire relief of our country from 
slavery, and the gradual peopling of Africa with freemen. The 
great moral debt of our nation will thus be paid. The children 
of Africa will carry back to their native land, arts, civilization, 
freedom, and Christianity. The toil and bondage of millions 
who are dead will be rewarded by the wealth and liberty of 
millions alive ; and the angels of Justice and Mercy, looking 
down on our world, may rejoice to behold the long lamented 
delinquency of one age so fully expiated by the transcendant 
remuneration of another. From this class of men — from these 
genuine philanthropists — numerous and influential as they may 
be, Southern men have nothing to fear. 

" A third class in the great community of the free States, 
equally regard law, justice, and the rights of others ; but they 



76 MEMOIR OF 

look on the connexion of master and slave with the eye of the 
mere politician. Their interests, and habits of thinking, call 
them to a consideration of States and Nations as communities 
of People capable of wealth or poverty, imbecility or power. 
They make themselves acquainted with the statistics of differ- 
ent States, and compare one with another, to the intent that 
they may find which are most probable to excel in that mystery 
— in some degree the mystery of all men — the great trade and 
mystery of bettering their condition. Many important questions 
are involved in their theory ; not only what kind of land and 
what kind of machinery, but what kind of labor, may be ren- 
dered most productive. Is it that of freemen, or is it that of 
slaves ? The keen investigation of this class of men in our 
country, and of the like class of men in other countries, has fin- 
ished and solved this great question. What was a problem in 
the civilized world one century ago, has now become an axiom 
in political science. It is now believed, by this whole class of 
politicians in the North, that slave labor is much less productive 
than the labor of freemen. It is believed that such as labor for 
themselves, and who, by superior industry, skill, and faithful- 
ness, may better their own condition, will more probably have 
and exercise these qualities for the benefit of themselves and 
their employers, than slaves, who cannot, b}^ any exertions, in 
any considerable degree, improve their own condition, or, in any 
event, relieve themselves from bondage or servitude. Hope is 
the animating principle of free, fear the fatiguing motive of 
slave labor. The reward of hope quickens, the fear of punish- 
ment paralyzes exertion. The free laborer consumes with 
economy ; and, with that care and parsimony which are the 
greatest cause of national accumulation, lays by a part of that 
portion of production belonging to himself, wherewith to build 
the foundation of a little capital of his own. Inconsiderable as 
these savings may individually be, in any one year, yet, when 
united, they make a great part of the sum total of the savings 
of any nation ; and are not unfrequently the origin of immense 
private fortunes. In slave-labor States, such parsimony and 
such accumulation cannot be expected, nor is it ever found. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 77 

Why should the slave spare in consumption, when he can 
neither accumulate for himself or his children? All these 
things are known to this race of politicians — these men of 
worldly wisdom. They are pleased with their own condition, 
because they know that condition is more conducive to prosper- 
ity than that of slave-holding States. These Northern men 
will never disturb the tenure by which Southern men hold this 
evil. No, Sir, so long as this class of men understand their own 
interest, and are mindful of it, and desirous to outstrip the hold- 
ers of slaves in bettering their own condition, so long will the 
master and slave be held to their present relations, according 
to all the provisions of the Constitution. 

"From neither of these causes, therefore, have Southern men 
any thing to apprehend, or to produce any excitement. The 
enthusiasts will not disturb them, for they have not the power 
to do it. The philanthropists will not do it ; for they will not, 
for any supposed good, violate even the legal rights of others. 
From the politicians they have nothing to apprehend ; because 
they will not only not break through the laws of their country 
for any purpose whatever, or better the condition of any man 
against his own will, but because they will not diminish the 
political weight and influence of themselves, and their own 
States, for any purpose of augmenting that of other men or 
other States. No ; be ye assured, throughout all the regions of 
the South, the philanthropist will never unjustly relieve the 
slave from his master ; the politician will never illegal^ relieve 
the master from the slave. I have thus far labored to quiet all 
this Southern excitement, by endeavoring to demonstrate, that 
Congress have no Constitutional right to legislate on the prop- 
erty relation of master and slave ; and that Northern men, by 
their principles of morality and religion, their habits of thinking, 
and the attachments they continually feel for their own interest, 
can have no disposition, either unjustly or illegally, to interrupt 
or call in question this relation. Suffer me to say, Sir, that 
every gentleman of the South on this floor, has from me a high 
pledge of my candor and sincerity in this debate. I have a 
brother, dearer to me than almost any other man, who lives 
in one of the most Southern States, and is there a planter to 



78 MEMOIR o r 

no inconsiderable extent. Believe me, for the reasons I have 
given you ; if not, believe me for my fraternal feelings. Be 
assured, I would neither overthrow his rights, nor interrupt his 

repose." 

******** 

" It has been contended in this debate, that the right to impress 
is, in the commanding general of an army, a perfect right. He 
has the full power of the sovereignty ; can take all ; take all for 
the common defence ; all persons, all property ; the master and 
slave, the father and son ; and he has the same power over what 
conies under his command by impressment, as he has over what 
comes there by contract. He is endowed with the eminent 
domain ; the transcendental power of the sovereignty. This 
question does not call for any support from such principles. 
Why they are advanced at this time, and in the present condition 
of our country, may, for all purposes of this discussion, be very 
safely left to the determination of those gentlemen who have, 
as sound doctrines, introduced them, 1 believe, for the first time, 
into a debate in any Congress of these United States. Yes, Sir, 
for the first time this House, the hallowed temple of liberty, the 
sanctuary of freedom, has been profaned by the publication of 
doctrines, odious to the ear of slavery itself; and never uttered 
aloud in the pure light of clay, even by the most absolute des- 
potism. Against these, I beg leave to bear my humble testi- 
mony, and freely to express the most unqualified execration of 
them. A very short examination of the nature of our govern- 
ment will demonstrate the utter absurdity of all such principles. 
A commanding general can have no more power than Con- 
gress has ; for he receives all his power from them ; and they 
cannot communicate to others what has not been given to them. 
We cannot fairly reason from the powers of European Govern- 
ments, to show the powers of our own. The Governments of 
Europe have all the power not wrested from them by the People ; 
while our Government has no more power than has been given 
to it by the People. In this country, the great residuary power 
is with the People ; in that, it is with the Government. All 
the Governments of Europe had a. feudal origin. The Roman 
power, that iron despotism which had, for six centuries, set it? 



TRISTAMB URGES. 79 

foot on the neck of all civilized nations, was, after years of con- 
flict, broken in pieces by numerous armies of martial barbarians. 
These were led on to the conquest by numerous warlike chief- 
tains. When the victory was achieved, they divided the plunder 
according to their rude notions of justice. When this was done, 
they formed a number of Military Governments ; being the only 
system of polity which such men were capable of conceiving, or 
keeping in operation when formed. The lands were parcelled 
out to their subordinate officers, as their great feudatories ; and 
on the condition, among others, of aiding the chieftain with 
military service in his wars. The duration of their military 
service was stipulated in the grant. Nearly all the present 
Governments of Europe originated in this manner ; and are 
derived from those Military Governments. Even then, the 
chieftain could call his feudatory into the field, for only a certain 
and limited number of days. He could neither impress him, 
or any of his immediate retainers ; nor take from him one of his 
servants or slaves. When the Sovereigns of Europe changed 
this military system, the tenure of lands by chivalry was abol- 
ished. Armies were formed by mercenaries or volunteers. 
Men holding lands under him, could no longer be called on, as 
of right, by the Sovereign, to do military service. In England, 
the whole tenure by which lands were holden, was, in the reign 
of Charles the Second, changed to that of free and common 
socage. Since that time, no King of England can exact per- 
sonal military services; and George the Fourth, wearing the 
crowns of three kingdoms, with the titular sovereignty of France 
in addition, cannot impress into his armies the poorest and most 
defenceless man in his dominions. Let me ask, Sir, has the 
Congress of the United States, more power over the citizens of 
the several States, than the King of Great Britain has over his 
own subjects ? Why, Sir, the first settlers of this country, who 
came from England, brought with them " all and singular the 
rights and liberties of Englishmen." Their charters were, that 
of Rhode-Island I know was, " to have and to hold their lands 
by tenure of free and common socage." How does it then 
come to pass that Englishmen cannot be impressed into the 



80 MEMOIR OF 

army by the military officers of their King; while the People of 
the United States, both "master and servant, father and son," 
may be impressed by their own military officers into their own 
armies ? Did we indeed lose the liberty of freeborn English 
subjects, when we achieved the independence of the American 
States 1 Even in feudal days in England, the ranks of war 
were filled more by a gallant spirit of knighthood, the glorious 
patriotism of chivalry, than by the exercise of any legal power 
in the Sovereign. Would to God, Sir, that ancient valor of soul, 
that high enthusiasm of patriotic spirit, had redeemed our coun- 
try from this public avowal of the right or the necessity of mili- 
tary impressment. Sir, the press-gang of England, to man their 
Navy, is an engine of power, sanctioned by no law, or ever jus- 
tified by any English lawyer ; and he who resists the exercise 
of it upon himself, even unto blood, will find a perfect justifica- 
tion in the laws of his country. 

"Congress, Sir, have power by the Constitution to raise armies. 
This may be done either by enlistment, or by hiring auxiliaries, 
or by calling out the militia, to aid in the execution of the laws, 
to suppress insurrections, or to repel the invasion of any State or 
Territory. Can this Congress raise armies in any other man- 
ner ? Can they enact a law, whereby any person in the United 
States may be impressed, and thereby fill up the ranks of the 
Army 1 This law, to have any effect, must find some portion 
of the People whereon to be put in legal execution. Can it be 
executed on the militia? By the Constitution, Congress can 
organize the militia. They may, as they have done, form all 
able-bodied, free white citizens, into companies, battalions, regi- 
ments, brigades, and divisions. These are equipped, accoutred, 
and officered: for all this is expressed or implied in the Consti- 
tutional power of organization. The militia may be called out 
for any constitutional purpose, and during any length of time 
provided by law ; but they can be called out as militia only ; 
for they must, says the Constitution, be commanded by their 
own officers, appointed by their own States. How, then, Sir, 
can Congress make a law, whereby the militia may be im- 
pressed ; picked out man by man from the ranks of their own 



T R I S T A M BURGES. 



81 



regiments, taken from the command of their own officers, and 
placed in the ranks of the Army, and under the command of 
the officers of the United States ? No, Sir, the militia cannot, 
nor a man of them be impressed ; nor could any one, after 
enrolment, enlist into the army of the United States, had not 
the law for organizing the militia, expressly reserved to them 
the right so to enlist. Your law for raising an army by impress- 
ment, must, Sir, if it operate at all, operate on people other than 
the militia of your country. You cannot from that constitu- 
tional bulwark of our nation, pick down so much as one stone, 
brick, or bit of fractured cement, by any minion of military des- 
potism, acting under any law ever enacted, or to be enacted by 
this Congress. Your law of impressment must, then, be exe- 
cuted on those exempted from service, under the organization of 
the militia. These are all such as by condition, or by age, being 
too young, or too old, or by employment, or office, are exempted 
from military service, in war or in peace. The whole mass of 
slaves in our country, are, by their condition, exempted and 
excluded from military service. Both sides of the House will 
agree to this proposition. Policy does not permit their masters 
to place them in the ranks of the army; nor does justice author- 
ize the United States to impress and send them there. No man 
can justly be received, or compelled to fight for liberty, without 
first being made legally capable of enjoying it. You will, there- 
fore, make no law to raise Armies, by authorizing the impress- 
ment of slaves. Will you enact a law to conscribe, and take by 
violence, from the nurture, education, and instruction of parental 
care, guardianship, and affection, the whole childhood of your 
country ; and fill the rough ranks of war with the tender and 
unseasoned limbs of infancy 1 If there were not a physical 
impossibility interposed between any such law and the object of 
it ; yet are the high moral principles of filial and parental rela- 
tion, so paramount in the heart of every man, woman, and child, 
of this nation, that such a law could never outlive the hour of 
its enactment. 

"Will you impress those exempted by their advanced age, and 
send your fathers and grand-fathers to fight your battles, be- 



82 



MEMOIR OF 



cause their more prudent sons refuse to join the Army by enlist- 
ment ? These men have purchased their exemption, by militia 
services already performed. You have received the considera- 
tion ; can you take back that for which they have fully paid 
you? Not, Sir, with justice; and what you cannot do with 
justice, you cannot constitutionally do. Indeed, Sir, I believe 
our nation has, and ever will have, enough of Spartan courtesy, 
if not of Spartan valor, to revere the character, and hold invio- 
late the venerable rights of age. Other persons are exempted 
by their employments. Will you extinguish the lights on your 
coast, that you may place their keepers in your armies, or profit 
by the salvage of shipwrecks on your shores ? Will you abolish 
commerce, that you may impress sailors; or give up revenue, 
for the sake of placing custom-house officers under military 
command ? The transmission of public and private intelligence 
employs, in the direction and conveyance, a large number of 
men. Will you impress all these into the ranks of war, and 
leave all knowledge of passing events to be transported from 
one place or one person to another, by special messengers, or 
' to be blown about by the viewless couriers of the air?' In 
each of the several States and in the United States, is a numer- 
ous, learned, and highly respected body of Judges. These are 
all exempted from duty in the organized militia of the several 
States. W T ill you make a law authorizing their impressment ? 
Do, Sir, let it be so enacted, that the recruiting officers of some 
military chief, high in command, may, by that power which 
can 'take all,' bring forward from each State in the Union, 
each venerable Bench, and place them under review in front of 
this Hall. When this is done, send at least a corporal and file 
of soldiers to the other end of this building. Let ' the pure 
ermine of Justice' be contaminated by the touch of military vio- 
lence. Bring out the venerable Chief Justice and his learned 
associates. We shall reduce to fact what was once a mere sar- 
castic fiction; you will really have 'an army of Judges.' The 
streams of Justice will, indeed, be cut off at the fountain ; her 
sanctuary will be profaned in the very persons of her consecrated 
priesthood ! But, what then ? The Judicial will merely be 



TRISTAM BURGES. 83 

rendered subordinate to the Legislative, and all to the Military 
power; and 'law will then be silent amidst arms.' Congress 
will but have to add one section more to their law of impress- 
ment, and comprehend the Legislatures of the several States in 
the sweeping provisions of it. For, it is presumed no Congress 
will ever make a law rendering themselves liable to the exercise 
of this 'eminent domain,' this transcendant military power, 
which ' has a perfect right to take all.' No, Sir, a law of 
impressment to ' raise armies' cannot be made: for you cannot 
impress those exempted from the militia, because they are so 
exempted by laws paramount to the Constitution. And you 
cannot impress the militia, because they are exempted by the 
Constitution. 

" This doctrine of impressing freemen involves a moral absur- 
dity. All power is given to Congress by the will of the People ; 
but all impressment is the exercise of power against the will of 
the People. How then can it flow from their voluntary grant 1 
All impressment is the exercise of despotic power — a power 
uncontrolled by any thing other than the will of him who exer- 
cises it : but all granted power must be limited and exercised 
according to the will of him who grants it. Despotic power, 
like slavery, can never originate in compact. Liberty is unalien- 
able. How can a man sell himself to be a slave, since the very 
consideration he may receive for his liberty, will, the moment 
he becomes a slave, revert to his master; and thereby, for want 
of consideration, render the contract nugatory. 

" Wisdom is ever schooled by experience ; let us examine her 
lessons. We have had two wars ; the first, long, dangerous, 
and difficult ; the second, not so long, attended with less dan- 
ger, but with some difficulties. Neither the Continental Con- 
gress, nor the Congress of the United States, ever exercised, or 
contended that they could exercise, the power to enact any law 
of impressment, either to raise or recruit their armies. If, 
therefore, Congress can have no such power, how can com- 
manding Generals, acting under the laws of Congress, have 
any such power ? Did Washington ever exercise, or claim such 
power ? No, sir ; much as he was adored, by the people of 



84 



MEMOIR O F 



this country, any attempt at impressment, would have brought 
him down to the level of mere ordinary humanity. Shall any 
General, since his time, in this country, exercise, and be justi- 
fied in exercising this odious power ? Who in this House would 
have suffered the exercise of it upon himself, or his sons 1 Shall 
we believe that the poorest freeman in the country has less of 
the spirit of freedom and generous manhood, than the wealthiest 
and proudest man in the nation 1 It was once nobly said, 
4 The poor man's house is his castle. The winds of heaven 
may blow through it — but the King dares not enter.' In this 
country, shall the Congress, or the commanding General, dare 
to enter 1 It may be rude and unfinished, but his fire-side is 
the home of his comforts, the altar of his devotions, the sanctu- 
ary of his wife and children ; and shall the unhallowed foot of 
violence profane his threshold 1 What man of you all, who 
now hear me, would endure the paltry minion of a military- 
despot to rudely enter your dwelling, and choose between your- 
self and your son, which he would drag to the recruiting house, 
there to be measured and mustered for the ranks of the army 1 
" Let me ask, why should this power to raise armies by im- 
pressment have been given to Congress ? Will not the people 
know, quite as well as their public servants here, when a \\ ar 
is necessary 1 When they believe it to be so, it will be popular 
with them. When they want a war, they will enlist, volun- 
teer, run to the battle field, as was done in the Revolutionary 
War. The Constitution, which gives Congress all the power 
they can of right exercise, w T as formed by those men, and 
formed not long after they had achieved our independence. 
Did they not remember the valor wherewith that war had been 
conducted ? Did they forebode the degeneracy of their race ; 
and, therefore, provide this constitutional cure for cowardice ? 
And lest, peradventure, their sons and descendants should not 
voluntarily defend their liberty and independence, give power 
to Congress to provide for having them dragged into the ranks 
of their own armies ? No, Sir ; this Constitution, by providing 
that 'no man shall be deprived of liberty, but by due course of 
law,' provides that no innocent man shall ever be deprived of 



TR 1ST AM B URGES. 85 

liberty ; nor even the guilty, until accused, tried, convicted, and 
sentenced to a loss of it by imprisonment. Sir, not until martial 
law shall become the law of the land, and the whole country 
shall be formed into one vast camp, need we fear impressment, 
either without law or by force of any legislative enactment. 

" Cannot property be taken for public use by the command- 
ing General 1 It can be taken no otherwise by him, than it 
can be taken by Congress. They are told by the Constitution, 
'Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without 
just compensation.' Just compensation has reference to the 
value of the consideration paid, as well as to the time of pay- 
ment. -He who takes property, unless he contracts to pay at a 
future day, does not make just compensation, unless he pays 
when he receives the property. Notwithstanding the assertion 
of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Sutherland,] a mere 
promise to pay is no compensation ; especially if made by 
the United States, against which you can have no compulsory 
process. The United States are continually making contracts, 
and receiving the lands of individuals, either for light-houses, 
fortifications, or other purposes. They cannot seize and confis- 
cate these lands. An appropriation is made by Congress to 
make payment, upon receiving the conveyance. The owner 
makes a deed of the land to the United States ; and if he be wise, 
he will not deliver this deed to the agent, until he receives his 
money. I do not know of any other, nor have I ever heard of 
any other method in this country, of obtaining specific private 
property for public use. The great sources of ways and means, 
by which Congress can raise a revenue, are Impost, Duties, 
Excise, Taxes, and Loans. By these they provide for the gene- 
ral defence, and not by impressment and military exaction. 
What, Sir, can a General take, when he cannot take the lodg- 
ing of a single soldier in any man's house, even in time of 
war, unless a law be first made, regulating the manner in which 
it may be done ? Who, then, will contend that a General may 
plunder the people he is sent to protect ; stripping the very beds 
from under their children, and carrying away the whole food of 
their households 1 Why, Sir, the very compensation law of the 



86 



MEMOIR OF 



9th of April, 1816, giving remuneration to such persons as had 
suffered from such impressments, by the military officers in the 
last war, demonstrates that Congress considered them all illegal. 
For it provides that all, who have recovered compensation of 
such officers, shall receive none of Congress, and all who have 
not, and who claim it here, shall, before receiving the amount 
of their claim allowed, execute a release to the officer who made 
the impressment. 

"It has been said, necessity will justify taking any thing. 
Necessity, Sir, is named the tyrant's plea. What kind of neces- 
sity justifies any act? It is that which takes away law. 
Where necessity may be the rule of action, law cannot be the 
rule. Law ends where necessity begins : for necessity has no 
law. You throw overboard the cargo, to save the ship ; the 
owner of the goods is not wronged, because had you not done 
this, both ship and cargo would have been lost. Two men 
escaping from a wreck, succeed in getting on the same plank ; 
it can float but one of them ; in the struggle for self-preserva- 
tion, one is pushed off and drowned ; the other reaches the shore. 
No wrong has been done : for if one had not, both must have 
perished Ten men are all the survivors in a foundered ship ; 
they have no provisions ; they agree to a decimation by lot. 
The death of one preserves the rest, till some pilgrim traveller 
of the ocean relieves them. His death was a calamity, not a 
wrong : for all must have died, if the death of one had not saved 
the other nine. In a burning city, a house, adjoining one al- 
ready in flames, is blown up, to stop the progress of the fire. 
The owner of that house has suffered no injury : for his house 
would have been consumed by the fire, if it had not been de- 
stroyed to stop the progress of it. In a beleaguered city, cut off' 
from all aid and succor from the country, every thing is brought 
forth to aid in the defence ; the very women carry out their own 
food and that of their children, to refresh the men fighting on 
the walls. When a practicable breach is made by the enemy, 
houses are seen to have been demolished, and another wall is 
already erected within. No injury is done to the owners by this 
mode of defence ; because, if the enemy had succeeded, he 



TRISTAM BURGES, 87 

would have deprived them of all they possessed. So it is in re- 
capturing a city ; and so where the armies of the country meet 
to repulse the invading enemy : Whatever is destroyed by the 
march or conflict, would have been taken or destroyed by the 
enemy, if it had not been so destroyed on the field of battle. 
These are cases of necessity. 

" Now, Sir, did any such necessity exist in the defence of 
New-Orleans ? The condition of that city has, in this debate, 
been placed before us, and colored by a description of all the ca- 
lamities of a beleaguered town, cut off from all possibility of aid 
to be derived from the Government or surrounding country. 
The fact was not so. New-Orleans was open to the populous 
and wealthy States of the West. Were they slow in sending 
succors? No, Sir; every wave of their own mighty rivers 
rolled down, freighted with the strength, the arms, and the va- 
lor, of those patriotic regions. Cotemporaneous prejudice may, 
for a time, triumph over truth ; but history, impartial history, 
will do justice to that people ; nor leave to the future orator in 
this House a shadow of claim to declare, e that New-Orleans 
could not have been defended without impressing' master 
and slave, father and son. Nor will I believe, Sir, that the 
gallant people of that devoted city waited to be impressed into 
their own defence. The blood of the Goth, the Frank, and the 
Saxon, mingles in their veins ; and when was either race known 
to retreat from the face of danger ? No, Sir ; all property was 
ready, and tendered to the public service; all persons stood 
to their arms, and waited only for the command. There was 
no treachery, no disaffection, no desire to escape clanger. It has 
been said, Sir, the invading foe promised to his soldiery all the 
rewards of a licentious brutality : gold to the avaricious, beauty 
to the profligate. I would to God, for the honor of the English 
name, it were not so ; but, so it has been told, and so it has been 
believed. Was this watch-word echoed through the streets of 
Orleans, and was there a husband, a father, a brother, who did 
not fly to the defence 1 Who can say that men, brave men, the 
valor and chivalry of New-Orleans, did, or could on that day, 
wait to be compelled into defence — I do not say of their city, 



88 MEMOIR OF 

their wealth, their houses, their fire-sides — but of the cherished 
honor, the pure loveliness of their sisters, and wives, and 
daughters ? The very surmise is a foul and tainting calumny." 

"The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Everett,) has 
said, that the law of the United States took away the power of 
the father over the son, and, by carrying him forward out of his 
minority three years earlier than he otherwise would have been, 
rendered him capable of contracting to serve his country. I 
have, Sir, no belief that the United States have any authority to 
abrogate the parental power, even if it existed only in the laws 
of State jurisdiction. It has a higher sanction ; the unchange- 
able relations of nature ; the laws of God, paramount to all 
human legislation. Its object is the perfect education of the 
son. It begins with the cradle; it ends in his entire manhood, 
the maturity of his body and mind. During its whole course, 
it is a reciprocation of benefits. At first they are, indeed, nothing 
to the father, but the smile, the caress, a'nd the joyous gratitude 
of infancy ; at last, relief, assistance, and substantial remunera- 
tion. Can the son forget, and shall laws be formed to make 
him forget, that his father cared for him, and labored for him, 
while he slept on his mother's bosom ? Let every man read his 
own heart ; he will find the laws of this relationship indelibly 
written there. I beg leave to say, Sir, if there be any memory 
of my own past life, which comes back to me with feelings not 
to be touched by time, or discolored by any condition of exist- 
ence, it is the grateful recollection that I wrought out the full 
term of my legal minority, under the power of my father, in 
aiding him to cultivate his fields. No, Sir, the law of filial obli- 
gation, of paternal authority, cannot be abrogated by civil 
enactments. Sparta took children from their parents ; but the 
State became the parent. The Lacedemonians were not a 
commonwealth of citizens. They were an army ; their city 
was a camp ; and they were mere warriors. The Hebrew pa- 
ternal power, like the Roman, was great, and was confirmed by 
all the sanctions of the decalogue. Men were, however, found 
in that nation w r ho could advocate its abrogation. The tradi- 



TRISTAMB URGES. 89 

tions of the Sanhedrim, and the lectures of the Synagogue sub- 
verted this law of Moses; and he who would devote his services 
on the altar, and pronounce it c gift,' was released from the law 
of his parents, and thereby became capable of serving the State. 
This was the tradition of the Corbun ; and such as taught its 
doctrines were denounced by the Saviour of the World, as 
those who * made void the laws of God by the command of 



" I want words, Sir, to express my regret that such a ques- 
tion, and for such an amount, should have been brought into 
debate on this floor — that such principles and such terms should 
have been pressed into the discussion. Why urge the question 
of slavery upon us, and at the same time, declare that we 
dare not decide it ? We have no right — we claim no right — 
we wish for no right — to decide the question of slavery. Men 
from the free States have already decided the question for 
themselves, within their own State jurisdiction ; and such men, 
to decide it here for other States, must first be renegade from 
the Constitution, or oblivious of its high and controlling princi- 
ples. When has this question been raised, and not by men in- 
terested in its eternal slumber? The Missouri Question was, 
' as it has truly been said on this floor, no triumph. It was no 
I triumph of policy ; it was no triumph of humanity. To con- 
I tract, and not extend the theatre of it, is the true policy of every 
| statesman, as well in the slave-holding, as in (hose States un- 
cursed by this moral and political mischief. On this matter of 
| slavery, singular and ominous political events have, within the 
I last forty years, transpired in the great community of the New 
' World. What another half century will exhibit, is known 
i to Him only who holds in his hand the destiny of nations. This 
(kind of population is rapidly increasing ; and, should any large 
and united number of them make a desperate struggle for 
emancipation, it will then indeed be found, that the policy 
which had placed aid and relief at any greater distance, was 
cruelly and fatally unwise. Humanity surely did not triumph 
in that decision. It widened the mart of slavery. Southern 



90 



MEMOIR Or 



men have nobly aided in driving from the ocean a traffic which 
had long dishonored our country, and outraged the best feelings 
of our nature. The foreign slave-trade is now piracy. Would 
to God, the domestic might, like his barbarous brother of the 
seas, be made an outlaw of the land, and punished on the same 
gibbet. 

" The Constitution, we know, does not permit one class oi 
the States to legislate on the nature or condition of the property 
of the other class. Why tell us, for we already know, that 
neither our religion or our humanity can reach or release that 
condition. Humanity could once bathe the fevered forehead 
of Lazarus — she could not bring to his comfort so much as a 
crumb from the sumptuous and profuse table of Dives. Reli- 
gion may weep, as the Saviour of the World wept over the 
proud city of Herod : but her tears will fall like the rain-drops 
on the burning plough-share, and serve only to render the stub- 
born material more obdurate. 

" We are called and pressed to decide this question, and yet 
threatened, that the decision will dissolve the Union. c The 
discussion and the Constitution will terminate together.' — 
4 Southern gentlemen will, in that event, leave this Hall.' 
Who makes this menace, and against whom ? It cannot be a 
war cry ; can it be a mere party watch-word ] On what event 
of immeasurable moment are we thus adjured ? In a paltry 
claim of two hundred and nine and { thirty' pieces of silver, 
shall we, w r ho have in this Hall, lifted the hand, or c kissed' the 
hallowed gospel of God, in testimonial of high devotion to its 
requirements, shall we now, in the same place, ' deliver up' this 
our great national charter ? This event cannot come with safe- 
ty to our country, and wisdom would admonish us to inquire 
what concomitants may attend it ; and whom they will visit 
most disastrously ! Must we be schooled on the benefits of the 
Union ? It were wise for such scholars to take some lessons on 
the evils of separation. The Hebrew, when fed by the bread of 
Heaven, murmured at his God ; looked over the sea, and pined 
for the luxurious slavery of Egypt. Is it a vain imagining ; or 
may there be a charm in foreign alliance, more potent than the 



TRISTAM BURGES. 91 

plain simplicity of domestic independence ? England can, in- 
deed, make lords. The United States can make none. She 
too, can, and has in the last century, made more slaves than all 
other nations, Pagan or Christian. 

" We are surrounded, protected, and secured by our Consti- 
tution. By this, we are in safety from the power and violence 
of the world ; as some wealthy regions are, by their own bar- 
riers, sheltered from the ravages of the ocean. Do not forget, 
for they never forget, that a small, insidious, persevering reptile, 
may, unseen, bore through the loftiest and broadest mound. The 
water follows its path, silently and imperceptibly at first, but 
the rock itself is worn away by the continual attrition of a per- 
petually running stream. A ravine, a breach is made ; and 
the ocean rushing in, flocks, and herds, and men, are swept 
away by the deluge. Pause, before you peril such a country ; 
pause, before you place in jeopardy so much wealth, and life, 
and intellect, and loveliness. Those of us, whose sun is far in 
the West, may hope to be sheltered before the storm. Be not 
deceived. Sparsed and blanched as are our hairs, they may be 
defiled in the blood of our sons ; and to you, who in the pride of 
manhood, feel the warm blood flowing at your hearts, while you 
stand joyously in the blooming circle of household loveliness, 
the day may come, unless the all-merciful God pours into the 
bosom of this nation, the hallowed and healing spirit of mutual 
confidence and mutual conciliation — to you, the tremendous 
day may come, when you shall sigh for the sad consolation of 
him, who, before that hour, shall have sheltered his very last 
daughter in the sanctuary of the tomb. Do not understand me 
as I do not mean to be understood. Those who would avert 
the events of that catastrophe, do not stand here in mercy, or to 
menace, or to deprecate. They stand here amidst all the mu- 
niments of the Constitution. They will not desert the ship, 
leave her who may ; they will perform the voyage, and to the 
very letter, and in the full spirit of all and singular the shipping 
articles ; and they, too, will, by the blessing of God, perform it 
without fear — prosperously as they trust, and with triumphant 
success." 



CHAPTER VII. 

John Randolph. — He interrupts Mr. Burges while speaking. — Reply of the 
latter. — Debate continued the next day by Mr. Burges — ITe comments on a 
Speech made by Mr. Randolph on the same Resolution. 

There are few men, living or dead, who have been more 
celebrated for a peculiar kind of eloquence, united with satire 
and eccentricity, than the late John Randolph, of Virginia. It 
is known that for a long period, he exercised supreme control 
over every legislative body of which he was a member, by his 
bitter irony, contemptuous sneers at men who ranked high in 
public esteem, and violent opposition to every measure advanced 
to promote the interests of the New-England States. Yet, 
many excellent qualities are conceded to Mr. Randolph. He 
loved his country ; in a narrow sense, however, his own Vir- 
ginia. That spot he thought was the brightest and happiest 
upon the face of the globe — the land of eloquence, learning, and 
virtue : its skies more beautiful, its climate more salubrious, its 
government and people more independent, than any other under 
heaven. Cherishing such prejudices, and imbued with a vaunt- 
ing pride of ancestry, it is not wonderful that Mr. Randolph 
exhibited peculiar traits of character, and opinions based upon 
false premises. Accordingly, whenever an opportunity occurred, 
he abused New-England; her character, habits and institutions. 
We cannot but lament, that one possessed of knowledge so 
diversified, should have been the slave of prejudice and passion. 1 
He might have done his country more good, and gone down to 
his grave covered with honor, had he possessed more magnan- 
imity, and looked beyond the narrow limits of Virginia for worth 
and patriotism. With all his faults, his example may be 

1 It is said that these prejudices were even such, that his books were all 
bound in England, because he would not patronize " the Yankees." 



TRISTAM BURGES. 98 

remembered, to be corrected. Men may learn how a fine mind 
can be turned from its proper channels, and paralyzed by the 
influence of prejudice. 

Mr. Randolph was a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, when Mr. Bulges first took his seat. As before remarked, 
he was accustomed to ridicule New-England men and meas- 
ures. By common usage he had taken them under his own 
charge ; and they shared the same fate that the lamb would 
receive under the protection of the wolf. No member opposed, 
hardly attempted, a reply to his taunts and accusations. In his 
own department of parliamentary eloquence he had been unri- 
valled. A subject was now under discussion, of vital import- 
ance to the Union — the Tariff. Mr. Bulges having observed in 
the course of an argument on the amendment to the bill then 
under consideration, that there was a disposition among some 
gentlemen, to support British interests, in preference to Ameri- 
can — Mr. Randolph rose, and interrupted him, saying, "This 
hatred of aliens, Sir, is the undecayed spirit which called forth 
the proposition to enact the Alien and Sedition Law: I advise the 
gentleman from Rhode-Island to move a re-enactment of those 
laws, to prevent the impudent foreigner from rivalling the Amer- 
ican seller. New-England, — what is she? — Sir, do you remem- 
ber that appropriate exclamation, — 'Delenda est Carthago?' " 

Mr. B urges — " Does the gentleman mean to say, Sir, New- 
England must be destroyed 1 If so, I will remind him, that the 
fall of Carthage was the precursor of the fall of Rome. Permit 
me to suggest to him, to carry out the parallel. Further, Sir, I 
wish it to be distinctly understood, that I am not bound by any 
rules, to argue against Bedlam : — but, when I hear any thing 
rational in the hallucinations of the gentleman, I will answer 
them." The Speaker interposed, and Mr. Bulges resumed his 
seat, saying, " Perhaps it is better, Sir, that I should not go on." 
The next day, he continued his speech on the proposed 
amendment. He embraced this opportunity to refute the asser- 
tion made by Mr. Randolph a few days previous, in his remarks 
on the same subject. " This attempt," observed Mr. B urges, 
"to destroy all, yes, all protection of New-England labor, skill and 



94 MEMOIR O F 

capital, has, by the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph,) 
been justified by a public declaration made by him, in his place 
on this floor, that the whole capital of New-England originated 
in a robbery ; a robbery committed more than forty years ago, 
and committed too, on the officers and soldiers of the revolu- 
tionary army. If it were a fact, what punishment is due to 
those who perpetrated the felony ? If by force, the gallows ; if 
by fraud, the loss of ears, and the pillory. If it be not true, what 
is merited by him, who has, knowing all the truth, made the 
accusation? The punishment, Sir, he merits, which would 
have alighted on him, in that community where it was first 
enacted : * Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh- 
bor.' What was that'? Lex talionis, { an eye for an eye.' 
He who would, by false accusation, peril the life or limb of 
another, did thereby place his own life and limbs in the same 
jeopardy. Let judgment pass to another audit. 

* Nor what to oblivion better were resigned, 
15e hung on high to poison half mankind.' 

" In the revolutionary war, ail who were whigs and patriots, 
all who were not tories and enemies to their country, contended 
for the independence of the United States, and united their 
whole means in the public service. When the w T ar was finished, 
balances were due, some more, some less, to the several States. 
Balances were, also, due to many individuals, who had furnished 
supplies. To the army, a debt of gratitude was due, which the 
world has not wealth enough to pay ; and the United States 
owed them, moreover, a great amount for arrears of pay, for 
subsistence, and for depreciation of that currency, in which they 
had for several years of the war, received their wages. To all 
the soldiers who had continued in service from 1780, until the 
army was disbanded, a bounty was due ; and all the officers who 
had served, from the same date, until the same period, were 
entitled to receive half the amount of their monthly pay, during 
the whole term of their natural lives. In lieu of this half pay, 
Congress, after the close of the war, promised to pay all such 
officers five years full pay in hand, in money or security, bear- 
ing a yearly interest of six per rent. So soon as it could be i 



TRISTAM BURGES. 95 

effected, all these several creditors received from the United 
States, by officers for that purpose by Congress appointed, certain 
certificates of the several sums due to each individual creditor. 
These certificates were issued, in the different States, to the credit- 
ors of the United States, belonging to such States ; and were pay= 
able to the person or States to whom the same were due ; or to 
bearer, on demand, with interest. These certificates were the ev- 
idences of the amount of the domestic debt of the United States, 
to each of the States, and to each individual in such States, 
They drew interest by their tenor, and were payable on demand, 
to whomsoever might be the bearer of them. They were, and 
were intended to be, a circulating medium. Had the United 
States been in funds for the payment of them, or of the interest, 
the medium would, in the absence of gold and silver, as was 
then the condition of the United States, have been equal to that 
currency. It would have been equal to the present United 
States Bank paper, or to the United States stocks. The nation 
was without funds, and then utterly insolvent. This medium, 
like the emissions of continental paper bills, fell much below par. 
It nevertheless continued to circulate, and was, as continental 
bills had been, before they become of no value, a medium of 
exchange. Men went to market with it, as with other paper 
bills with which they had been accustomed to go to market. 
The medium had a market value, as well known, though much 
below it, as the market value of silver and gold. Like the old 
continental, or the treasury notes of the last war, or the bank pa- 
per at that period, of all the banks in the country, excepting 
New-England, it passed from hand to hand, by delivery : being- 
payable to bearer, no written transfer was required, and the 
market value being generally known, every person who passed 
it away, and every man who received it, knew at what price it 
was so passed, and governed himself accordingly. If one man 
owed for goods received, or wished to purchase goods at the 
market, to the amount of one hundred dollars, and these certifi- 
cates, then a circulating medium, were at fifty cents for a dol- 
lar, he sent two hundred dollars to his creditor, or to the market. 
If they were at twenty-five cents, he sent four hundred dollars ; 



96 MEMOIR OF 

if at twelve and a half cents, eight hundred dollars. This, Sir, 
constituted the greatest part of the buying and selling, done in 
the market. What color had the gentleman to call such a 
transaction, robbery ? Was it less fair and honest than dealing 
in any other medium ? In continental bills, while they were 
current ? In treasury notes, twenty per cent, below par, as they 
were in the last war 1 In the depreciated paper of any estab- 
lished, legally established bank 1 Are not all of this description 
of paper subjected to this difficulty at different distances from 
the office of discount and payment ? Why, the whole paper 
medium of the world is at a discount at any commercially cal- 
culated distance from the place of payment, unless prevented 
by the accidents of trade. When I am at Providence, is not a 
note, bill, or bond, or any stock payable in Providence, worth 
more to me than if payable at Boston, or New- York, or Phila- 
delphia, or Baltimore, unless I want money at either of these 
cities ? This, Sir, creates an exchange, and puts all the paper 
credit at a discount or a premium in the whole commercial 
world. Is it a felony to deal in it, because depreciated or appre- 
ciated? No: not, Sir, if you pay the market value for it. 
These two circumstances, distance of the place, and payment, 
and the uncertainty of the solvency of the debtor ; the one or 
the other, and often both, place all that part of the circulating 
medium of the world, at some rate of discount, and render 
almost all exchanges a kind of barter, and to be managed by a 
price current ; and not a money transaction. Even gold and 
silver vary in exchangeable value, and it is only the minor ope- 
rations of trade which are governed by entire reference to the 
standard value of coin, either gold or silver. These two solid 
mediums have an exchange, one against the other; and, in all 
great transactions, must be governed, not by the laws of the 
mint, but by those of commerce, bargain, and convention. 
What medium, then, shall he use ? What shall be done by the 
gentleman too pure to deal in any depreciating medium ? 
What shall be done when his hard money system utterly, in 
principle, fails him 1 Turn anchorite. Deal only in bacon, 
beans, and tobacco. Here, too, the curse of commerce will 



TRISTAM BURGES. 97 

meet him ; and the want of an eternal standard of value, by the 
changing market value of his glorious staples, will leave him to 
the necessary bargaining and higgling of trade, like any mere 
honest man of this world. 

" Is it robbery, Sir, is it robbery, to deal in any thing deprecia- 
ted in market value below its original cost 1 May we not buy 
that to-day, which cost less than it would yesterday ? Then, 
Sir, whatever falls in price must forever remain unsold, unused, 
unransomed, and perish on the hands of the first producer. 
The pressure of want must never recall retiring demand by a 
diminution of price ; but all who did not, because they could 
not, sell at the top of the market, must never sell at any other 
grade ; and all who did not buy, because they could not, at the 
most costly price, are condemned to perish for want of goods 
which are perishing for want of purchasers. This, then, is the 
hard money government of the gentleman from Virginia. 

" The revolutionary soldiers passed off their certificates at the 
market, because they had no other means of purchase ; and 
those in New-England who had bread, meat, drink, and cloth- 
ing, received these certificates at the market value, because they 
could get no better medium for payment. These certificates found 
the readiest market, and the best price, among those people who 
had most regard for their country, and most confidence in public 
faith and public justice. Men who knew that the United States 
were insolvent, as all did, and believed them to be knaves, as 
some did, would not touch a certificate sooner than a continent- 
al dollar, worth then not one cent. Men who were patriots, and 
honest themselves, and had the best reason (a good conscience of 
their own) to think other men so, would not leave the soldier 
to perish, because he had nothing to pay for his bread but the 
proof of his services, and the plighted faith of a nation of pa- 
triots and heroes. Was this, Sir, robbery 1 — felony against the 
valor, which, steeped in blood, had won this country ? Then, 
Sir, the purest deeds are profligacy ; things sacred are profane, 
and demons shall riot in the spoils of redemption. It is true, 
the disbanded army received no where relief so readily as in New- 
England. Virginia, as the gentleman says, did not receive their 
depreciated money. Not because Virginia had not other paper 



98 



M EMUIll O I 



money to give for it. That the soldiers did not want. All 
paper money was alike to them. They had been mined by it. 
Their own certificates — the price of their scars and unclosed 
wounds, were in their hands — the best paper money then in 
circulation. They wanted bread. Virginia was then the land 
of corn ; the very Egypt of the United States. They did not 
buy. They chose to keep their w r heat in their storehouses, ra- 
ther than put soldiers' depreciated certificates, a kind of old con- 
tinental money, as they said, in their pockets. With Washing- 
ton, like the pious Patriarch preaching righteousness to antedi- 
luvian sinners, even with him preaching patriotism and public 
faith, they would not believe — would not barter bread and 
relieve hunger — no, not of a soldier — for any such consideration. 

" When this Government was established ; when this nation 
redeemed their high pledges, by funding and providing for that 
medium which patriots alone had with that hope received, or 
patriotic soldiers who were able to do so, had retained, then pub- 
lic justice did, as future mercy will do — reward all who, with 
faith in her high integrity, had fed the hungry and clothed the 
naked. 

" Here is the deep fountain of the gentleman's abounding 
anathema against New-England : They began the Revolu- 
tion ; they relieved the army who conquered the colonies from 
the European nation, and gave the American people their inde- 
pendence ; they received from this Government, by the funding 
system, the recompense of their patriotism and public confidence. 
These are injuries too high to be forgiven by one who has no 
goods but other's ills — no evils but other's goods. 

" 'This Government,' says the gentleman, 'was, by the Con- 
stitution, made a hard-money Government, because that Con- 
stitution gave them the power to "coin money." New-England 
has made it a paper-money, cotton-spinning Government.' — 
New-England, Sir, although not entitled to the honor of having 
introduced the Banking System, is yet entitled to the credit of 
never having departed from the principles of that system, by 
refusing to redeem her bills with silver or gold. The Govern- 
ment, by establishing the funding system, established the great 
banking principle in the country. AU these sons of Mammon, 



THIS T A M BURGE S. 



99 



who look on gold and silver as the only true riches, will regard, 
as the enemies of all righteousness, all those prudent statesmen, 
who consider money as merely the great circulating machine 
in the production of their country. It, therefore, becomes highly 
important to furnish so necessary and costly a machine, at the 
least practicable expenditure of labor and capital. 

" Every nation must be supplied with this circulating medium, 
in amount equal, and somewhat more than equal, to all its 
exchanges, necessarily to be made at any one given time. The 
same medium, or part of the whole, may operate different ex- 
changes at different times : but there must, at all times, be in 
the nation an amount equal to the amount of exchanges in 
operation at any one and the same time. This medium may 
be all money ; or what the laws have adjudged to be as money. 
It, however, in all trading nations, or which is the same thing, 
in all rich nations, does consist of several other parts. All the 
stocks representing national debts are one part of this medium. 
All the stocks representing the debts and capital of all incorpo- 
rated companies, are a second part. All the paper, representing 
all the debts of individuals, and unincorporated trading compa- 
nies, is a third part of this medium of circulation. The whole 
money, or what by law is adjudged to be as money, makes up 
the fourth and last part of this great machine of circulation, 
sustaining and keeping in full work, all the money production 
of any country. This money was anciently, in most nations, 
gold and silver. The modern invention of banking is thought 
to be an improvement. 

" If the money circulating medium of this nation be, as pro- 
bably it is, fifty millions of dollars, the cost of furnishing that 
amount must be equal to that sum. The yearly cost must be 
whatever the market interest may be in the whole country. To 
this must be added the amount yearly consumed by the wear of 
all the metallic pieces, whether gold, silver, or copper, of which 
such money is fabricated. This may be three per cent. The very 
great cost of transporting such a weight of money, to make all 
the ready exchanges of the immense trade of our country, cannot 
readily be appreciated or even conceived by men accustomed 
to the accommodation of bank bills for all such exchanges. Six 



100 MEMOIR OF 

per cent, per annum would not be a high charge for this cost. 
The whole expense would be per annum, fifteen per cent, at 
the least, and in the whole amount, seven million, five hundred 
thousand dollars. 

" If the banking system be, as it is, substituted for this hard 
money circulation, what will be saved 1 The whole success 
depends on one principle. If men receive bank bills, because 
they believe they may, whenever they call for it, at the bank, 
receive, for such bills, their amount in silver or gold, they will 
never go for such exchange, until they want the silver and gold 
for some purpose for which the bank bills cannot be used. How 
often this may be, cannot, a priori, be stated. Experience has 
solved the question. It has been found that not more than one 
dollar in eight, will usually be wanted for any such purpose. 
If, therefore, an amount, in gold and silver, equal to the one 
eighth part of the circulating money medium be kept in the 
vaults of banks, it will answer all calls for specie, in exchange 
for bank bills. With a money circulating medium in your 
country equal to fifty millions, you must keep in your vaults 
six million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in silver and 
gold. The yearly interest of this, at six per cent, is three hun- 
dred and seventy-three thousand dollars. If your banking 
houses and all other implements of trade cost a like sum per 
annum, or three hundred and seventy-three thousand dollars ; 
then the whole cost annually, of your money medium, will be 
seven hundred and forty-six thousand dollars. The whole sav- 
ing to the nation equals six million, seven hundred and fifty-four 
thousand dollars. That is the hard-money Government of the 
gentleman from Virginia, sustained by the tobacco-planting and 
slave-labored culture of Roanoke. This the banking and cotton- 
spinning Government of New-England, sustained by the free- 
labored corn and wool culture, and the manufacturing skill of 
the North, the West, and the East. Which is most productive 
of national wealth, comfort, and independence, has been abun- 
dantly demonstrated ; that each is equally honest and constitu- 
tional, no man, who ever looked into the world, or up towards 
heaven, or into his own heart, the gentleman alone, always ex- 
cepted, will have any cause ever to doubt. 



TRISTAM J3 U R G E S. 101 

" One objection more made by the gentleman to banking, and 
I leave him, to his own mercy. He has charged the banks in 
New-England, with the whole moral guilt of him, who lately, 
by fraud and peculation, possessed himself of the funds of a 
certain bank in Virginia. He has quoted the great canon of 
the Redeemer, ' lead us not into temptation.' Thus stands his 
argument : had not New-England invented and brought into 
use, the banking system, this Virginia Bank would never have 
existed ; and, therefore, his friend, the cashier, would not have 
been trusted, or tempted, or have transgressed. The gentleman 
from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph,) seems to have, and what can 
be more natural, a great sympathy for all but honest men. Sir, 
had God never given thee aught, that is thine own, he need 
never have said unto thee, ' thou shalt not covet aught that is 
thy neighbor's.' The gentleman has discoverd a new mode of 
preventing crimes : destroy all property, and you lay the axe to 
the very root of all transgression. Not so, robbery, defrauded 
of his spoil, and changed to hungry, lean, gaunt murder, would 
still plunder, for blood, when nothing else was left to be plun- 
dered. 

"To justify the Virginia cashier, the gentleman lays the sin 
at the door of New-England. They tempted, and but for this 
temptation, he had now been a pure, prosperous and high-minded 
gentleman. This apology is not new in any other respect, than 
in its application. He must have drawn it from a book, written 
in the second century, by a Jewish Rabbi, who calls himself 
Ben Mammon. The title of this labored work, is ' An Apology 
for Iscariot.' The whole argument may be thus shortly stated. 
6 The Nazarenes,' says this Hebrew doctor, 'accuse this man, 
Iscariot, without cause. Nay, they themselves were the au- 
thors of their own calamity. Jesus himself made Iscariot the 
purser of the whole family; and by putting money into his 
hands, tempted and seduced him into avarice and covetousness. 
If this had not been done, this much-injured man never would 
have delivered up his master to the high-priest, or sold him for 
thirty pieces of silver. It is also manifest,' continues the Rabbi, 
'that, had the Nazarene continued at home, where he ought to 
have continued, and in his carpenter's shop, and at his own 



102 MEMOIR OF 

trade, be never would have appointed Iscariot for his purser, nor 
ever have heen betrayed by him. Iscariot was therefore a just 
man ; and has been grossly libelled by Matthew the publican, 
who wrote the story. The guilt of this man's blood who hanged 
himself, and of the innocent blood, as he says, of his master, is 
on the head of Jesus himself, the founder of the Christian sect.' 
Thus, Sir, Ben Mammon justified Iscariot, and blasphemed 
Jesus ; and thus, too, the gentleman from Virginia justifies his 
houest friend, the cashier ; and calumniates the whole labor, 
capital, morals and piety of New-England ; and thus, too, mu- 
tatis mutandis, would he have placed a diadem on the murder- 
ous temples of Barrabas, and planted a crown of thorns on the 
head of him who redeemed the world. 

"Whence all this abuse of New-England, this misrepresenta- 
tion of the North and the West 1 It is, Sir, because they, and 
all the patriots in the nation, would pursue a policy calculated 
to secure and perpetuate the national independence on Great 
Britain. It is because they are opposed by another policy, 
which, by its entire, and by every part of its operation, will 
inevitably bring the American people into a condition of depend- 
ance on Great Britain, less profitable, and not more to our honor, 
than the condition of colonies. I cannot, I would not look into 
the secrets of men's hearts ; but the nation will examine the 
nature and tendencies of the American, and the anti-American 
Systems; and they can understand the arguments offered in 
support of each plan of national policy ; and they too can read, 
and will understand the histories of all public men, and of those 
two systems of national policy. Do we, as it has been insinu- 
ated, support the American policy, in wrong, and for the injury 
and damage of Old England ? 1 do not ; those with whom I 
have the honor to act, do not pursue this course — No, Sir, 

1 Not that I love England less, 
But that I love my country more.' 

Who, Sir, would wrong; who would reduce the wealth, the 
power of England ? Who, without a glorious national pride, 
can look to that as to our mother country 1 It is the land of 
comfort, accommodation, and wealth ; of science and literature ; 
song, sentiment, heroic valor, and deep, various, political philos- 



T II ItS T A M B U It G E S. 103 

ophy. Who is not proud, that our fathers were the compeers of 
Wolfe; that Burke, and Chatham spoke our mother tongue'? 
Who does not look for the most prosperous eras of the world, 
when English blood shall warm the human bosom over the 
habitable breadth of every zone : when English literature shall 
come under the eye of the whole world : English intellectual 
wealth enrich every clime ; and the manners, morals, and re- 
ligion, of us and our parent country, spread civilization under 
the whole jJj^lighted heaven; and, in the very language 
of our deHSB)ns, the hallowed voice of daily prayer shall 
arise to God, tTiroughout every longitude of the sun's whole race. 
"I would follow the course of ordinary experience ; render the 
child independent of the parent ; and from the resources of his 
own industry, skill, and prudence, rich, influential, and power- 
ful, among nations. Then, if the period of age and infirmity 
shall, as God send it may never, but if it shall come, then, Sir, 
the venerated parent shall find shelter behind the strong right 
hand of her powerful descendant." 

f " The policy of the gentleman from Virginia, calls him to a 
/ course of legislation resulting in the entire destruction of one 
I part of this Union. Oppress New-England until she shall be 
compelled to remove her manufacturing labor and capital to the 
. regions of iron, wool, and grain ; and nearer to those of rice 
and cotton. Oppress New-England until she shall be compelled 
to remove her commercial labor and capital to New-York, Nor- 
| folk, Charleston, and Savannah. Finally, oppress that pro- 
scribed region, until she shall be compelled to remove her agri- 
cultural labor and capital — her agricultural capital] No, she 
cannot remove that. Oppress and compel her, nevertheless, to 
remove her agricultural labor to the far off West; and there 
people the savage valley, and cultivate the deep wilderness of 
the Oregon. She must, indeed, leave her agricultural capital ; 
her peopled fields ; her hills with culture carried to their tops ; 
her broad deep bays ; her wide, transparent lakes, long-winding 
rivers, and populous waterfalls ; her delightful villages, flour- 
ishing towns, and wealthy cities. She must leave this land, 
bought by the treasure, subdued by the toil, defended by the 



1 04 MEMOl R O 1 

valor of men, vigorous, athletic, and intrepid; men, god-like in 
all making man resemble the moral image of his Maker ; a 
land endeared, oh ! how deeply endeared, because shared with 
women pure as the snows of their native mountains ; bright, 
lofty, and overawing, as the clear, circumambient heavens, over 
their heads ; and yet lovely as the fresh opening bosom of their 
own blushing and blooming June. / * Mine own romantic coun- 
try,' must we leave thee 1 Beautiful patrimony of the wise 
and good ; enriched from the economy, and ornaj^ented by the 
labor and perseverance of two hundred years ! SBt we leave 
thee, venerable heritage of ancient justice and pristine faith ? 
And, God of our fathers ! must we leave thee to the dema- 
gogues who have deceived, and traitorously sold us ? We must 
leave thee to them ; and to the remnants of the Penobscots, the 
Pequods, the Mohicans, and Narragansetts ; that they may lure 
back the far retired bear, from the distant forest, again to inhabit 
in the young wilderness, growing up in our flourishing cornfields 
and rich meadows ; and spreading, with briars and brambles, 
over our most c pleasant places.' 

" All this shall come to pass, to the intent that New-England 
may again become a lair for wild beasts, and a hunting-ground 
for savages. The graves of our parents be polluted ; and the 
place made holy by the first footsteps of our pilgrim forefathers, 
become profaned, by the midnight orgies of barbarous incanta- 
tion. The evening wolf shall again howl on our hills, and the 
echo of his yell mingle once more with the sound of our water- 
falls. The sanctuaries of God shall be made desolate. Where 
now a whole people congregate in thanksgiving for the bene- 
factions of time, and in humble supplication for the mercies of 
eternity, there those very houses shall then be left without a 
tenant. The owl, at noon-day, may roost on the high altar of 
devotion, and the ' fox look out at the window,' on the utter 
solitude of a New-England Sabbath. ) 

" New-England shall, indeed, under this proscribing policy, 
be what Switzerland was under that of France. New-Eng- 
land, which, like Switzerland, is the eagle nest of freedom ; 
New-England, where, as in Switzerland, the cradle of infant 
liberty * was rocked by whirlwinds, in their rage ;' New-Eng- 



TRISTAM B URGES. 105 

land shall, as Switzerland was, in truth, be 'the immolated vic- 
tim, where nothing but the skin remains unconsumed by the 
sacrifice ;' New-England, as Switzerland had, shall have 'no- 
thing left but her rocks, her ruins, and her demagogues.' 

" The mind, Sir, capable of conceiving a project of mischief 
so gigantic, must have been early schooled, and deeply imbued 
with all the great principles of moral evil. 

" What, then, Sir, shall we say of a spirit, regarding this 
event as a ' consummation devoutly to be wished V— a spirit 
without one attribute, or one hope, of the pure in heart ; a spirit 
which begins and ends every thing, not with prayer, but with 
imprecation ; a spirit which blots from the great canon of peti- 
tion, ' Give us this day our daily bread ;' that, foregoing bodily 
nutriment, he may attain to a higher relish for that unmingled 
food, prepared and served up to a soul * hungering and thirsting 
after wickedness ;' a spirit which, at every rising sun, exclaims, 
/* Hodie! hodie! Carthago delenda P 'To-day, to-day ! let New-/ 
England be destroyed !' 

"Sir, Divine Providence takes care of his own universe. 
Moral monsters cannot propagate. Impotent of every thing but 
malevolence of purpose, they can no otherwise multiply mise- 
ries, than by blaspheming all that is pure, and prosperous, and 
happy. Could demon propagate demon, the universe might be- 
come a Pandemonium ; but I rejoice that the Father of Lies 
can never become the father of liars. One 'adversary of God 
and man' is enough for one universe. Too much ! Oh ! how 
much too much for one nation." * 

1 Mr. Randolph could not withstand the unparalleled severity of this retort. 

j He immediately left the Hall, and his voice was never raised there afterwards. 

Mr. Burges was excited to this reply, by the conduct of Mr. Randolph ; who 

I had been pouring a storm of malediction and calumny upon New-England, and 

the former could endure it no longer. The weapons which Mr. Randolph had 

wielded with such effect against others, were now returned upon his own head, 

; with tenfold power. 

N 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. McDuffie.— Mr. Burges replies to a Speech made by him on the Tariil. 

Another gentleman, Mr. McDuffie, participated in the de- 
bate on the Tariff, and manifested a violence of feeling against 
New-England, not exceeded even by that of Mr. Randolph. 
Mr. McDuffie has been distinguished for hostility to the protect- 
ive policy ; and on the Resolution then under discussion, he 
made an argument against it, embracing the prominent objec- 
tions to that measure. Mr. McDuffie has splendid talents, 
strong passions, and vehement enthusiasm. He is a veteran 
legislator, takes an important part in the deliberations of the 
House of Representatives, and is justly ranked among the most 
able politictians, in the Southern section of the country. In 
relation, however, to many national interests, his sentiments are 
too narrow and local ; and his legislation, therefore, is not 
always adapted to secure the prosperity of the whole confede- 
racy. Hence, he has frequently opposed the most salutary 
measures, seemingly because they originated in New-England, 
and would enhance her prosperity. 1 During this session, and 
particularly in this debate, he exhibited more than his usual 
violence. Mr. Burges, in the course of his speech on the same 
Resolution, referred to the taunts and calumnies of Mr. McDuffie, 
and to the doctrines advanced by him in debate. 

"Mr. Chairman," said Mr. Burges, "he who has been at 
sea, knows that the inhabitants of that region, sport only in foul 
weather. In the sunshine and the calm, when the world of 
water is level and unmoving, every tenant of the ocean is still, 
and in repose. At such a time, if any cloud gives promise of 
something more than gentle airs, and the winds and the waters 



1 During the last session of Congress, Mr. McDuffie gave evidonee of a pa- 
triotism, which, in these times, it is delightful to commemorate. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 107 

begin to hold controversy ; then, suddenly, the whole popula- 
tion of the mighty realm is at once awake and in motion. Not 
merely the nimble dolphin gives his bright eye, and dazzling 
side to the sunshine ; but the black, uncouth porpoise, breaks 
above the water, and flounces, and spouts, and goes down again. 
The foul cormorant, stretching his long, lean wings, soars and 
sinks, piping shrill notes to the restless waves. The haglet and 
cut-water spring into flight, and dashing over the white crest of 
the lofty billows, scream their half-counter to the deep bass of 
the mighty ocean. 

" The moral may be illustrated, by a comparison with the 
natural world. The passions, and the winds, the melancholy 
and the clouds of each, are alike dark, or tumultuary. What 
has produced this mighty movement of the last few days in this 
House] Are the unhomogeneous elements of its majority get- 
ting into controversy'? Have the Northern promised to the 
Southern element, that they would provide a political measure, 
so promising to the West and the North, but so ruinous to the 
entire East, that all New-England must, in mass, rise up against 
it 1 Has it come to pass, that New-England has sacrificed 
herself, rather than disappoint the hopes, the vain and never to 
be realized hopes, of the North and the West? Did the South 
honestly vote for each, and all those specific provisions of the 
measure, so ruinous to New-England, and now so odious to 
themselves 1 Did they expect, when they had led themselves 
into temptation, that New-England would deliver them from 
evil 1 They did ; they are disappointed. 

" Hence the wailing, menaces, calumnies, and all the demon- 
strations of outrageous excitement, exhibited on this floor, by 
the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph,) and from South 
Carolina, (Mr. McDuffie,) and from New-York, (Mr. Cambre- 
ling.) 

"As it relates to New-England, I will make some reply. As 
it relates to the two parts of the majority of this House, which 
carried all the obnoxious provisions of this Bill, I will not hazard 
myself, ' within the wind of (heir controversy.' When cat and 
cat fly at each other, though the fur and skin may suffer, yet 



108 



MEMOIR OF 



what prudent boy will risk either hands or eyes in parting the 
combatants ; or in any attempt to interrupt the kitchen-yard 
melody of their courtship ? When wolf and wolf are by the 
threat, the sheep may be secure. The sheep is connected with 
something more than our working-day interest. The sheep, 
Sir, the lamb, comes to all our Eastern, Northern and Western 
recollections, associated with the images of poetry, and the 
inspiration of religion. 

"The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie,) with 
truth says, ' New-England has been pathetic on sheep-slaugh- 
ter.' He, who, for all his life, has regarded men as mere beasts, 
may be left to wonder, how men may come to connect any 
quadruped with any thing like sentiment or poetry. What ! does 
this demented Ajax imagine, when he has been merely sheep- 
killing, that he has slain Nestor and Ithacus, Idomeneus and 
Diomede ? What did the son of Telamon, when he discovered 
that he had been doing the work of a dog and not of a hero ? 
Sophocles will inform the learned gentleman. God forbid that 
I should say, and He seems to have forbidden, that the honora- 
ble gentleman should ' go and do likewise.' 

" The dead calm which for forty days hung portentously over 
the Southern region of this House, has at last called up the 
slumbering hurricane. The tempest has been raging in this 
new warfare among the kindred elements of this Congress; but. 
New-England has stood and endured all the storm of their mu- 
tual malediction. 

" The several views which I intend to take of the measure 
now before this House, will give me occasion to consider the true 
nature of our great national Impost System ; and, I trust, enable 
me as I proceed, to dissipate and scatter those clouds of calum- 
nies, which, like flights of locusts driven along by this rude 
tempest, have, from the North, the extreme West, and the 
South, been blown upon the devoted coasts of New-England. 

" I pray that the House will call to mind the course of this 
debate ; the manner of remark on the whole Encouraging and 
Protecting System ; the style of stricture indulged, not only, on 
any attempt made by me, in support of that system, but also, 



TRISTAM B URGES. 109 

the very remarkable manner, of* reviewing in this debate, some 
of my collegiate productions ; and above all, the reference made 
to that region of our country, which, I am prouder of having for 
my birth place, than was the son of Philip that he had passed 
the Granicus." 

" When I addressed this House, during the debate on the 
Woollen Bill, the last session, the gentleman from South Caro- 
lina, (Mr. McDuffie,) rose after me ; and in a bitter harangue 
on the whole American System, reproached me, for uttering a 
principle, which, as he then alleged, was an insult to the human 
understanding. I could not then reply. The debate was 
nearly closed : the hour was late : I left the gentleman to his 
easy and cheap triumph. I knew it was the triumph of a mind, 
miserably unlearned in all the great principles of our system of 
impost for revenue, encouragement and protection. He seems 
to have remembered, and I, therefore, may be excused for not 
forgetting, this little event. The gentleman did, on that occa- 
sion, announce the heretical doctrine, that all impost, whether 
for revenue, encouragement, or protection, is a tax on consump- 
tion. This too is the great leading doctrine of his ' Report on 
the State of the Finances.' I was persuaded, the last winter, 
when the gentleman so loudly lavished his abuse upon me, that 
his hour of repentance would come. Aye, Sir, when that 
would come upon him, when with as deep devotion as ever St. 
Augustine, for any of his youthful aberrations, did penance, 'in 
sackcloth shirt, with scourge of thorn.' I then said, I have since 
said, and published the declaration, and I now do say, that all 
impost for protection is no tax on consumption ; and that no 
domestic product, protected by impost, is thereby rendered 
dearer. I now do challenge him, I challenge any man in this 
House, in this nation, to name one domestic product, one article, 
protected by impost, and in possession of the domestic market, 
which is, by such impost for protection, rendered dearer to the 
amount of one mill. What is the article? I pause for that 
gentleman, or any other, to answer. No, Sir, there is no such 
article; not even a shoe tack, 'a hob nail.' Let the tongue of 



110 



M EMOI R O V 



slander be paralyzed and silent ; nor hereafter any more, for- 
ever, babble this pernicious absurdity ; no more calumniate to 
this nation, their own great national system of impost for reve- 
nue, encouragement and protection; nor again utter the vile 
cant, that all impost for protection, is a tax on consumption ; 
thereby pouring political poison into the abused ear of the 
American People, ever wisely and anxiously jealous of all, even 
their own constituted powers of taxation. 

" I have said, Sir, that when impost operates perfect protec- 
tion of any domestic product, importation of all foreign products 
of the same kind, does cease ; revenue on all such foreign pro- 
ducts must cease ; and domestic competition will, and does, 
then reduce such domestic product, to the lowest expenditure of 
labor and capital, for which it can be produced and brought to 
the market. This proposition is, as I understand, now admitted 
by the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. McDuffie,) and 
admitted in its full extent. The whole ground is changed ; 
and he now has tendered another issue. He puts the whole 
question on the production of woollen cloths. No power of 
competition can, as the gentleman alleges, and I admit, reduce 
the market price of woollen cloths, below the cost of producing 
and bringing such cloths to market. That cost, lie affirms, is, 
and must, from the nature of things, continue to be many times 
greater in the United States, than in England. He has tender- 
ed this issue. This issue I traverse ; and affirm that woollen 
cloths can be made and placed in the American market, by the 
American manufacturer, at a less expenditure of labor and capi- 
tal, than woollen cloths of the same kind and quality, can be 
produced and placed in the same market by the English manu- 
facturer; and that, the English manufacturer cannot produce 
and place in the English market, woollen cloths of any given 
kind and quality, at a less expenditure of labor and capital, than 
the American manufacturer can produce and place in the 
American market, woollen cloths of the same kind and quality. 

" The gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. McDuffie) pro- 
mises, if this question should go against him, to surrender at 
discretion ; and he stipulates, as a security for the performance 
of this promise, in that event to give his head to the block. 



TRISTAM BURGES. HI 

" I do not accept his promise or his stipulation. To the gen- 
tleman I have no promises to give, and no stipulations to offer ; 
and whatever may be the success of my effort, no forfeiture can 
be suffered by me. If the demonstrations which I attempt to 
make, do utterly fail, neither the greatness nor the justice of the 
cause, for which I would make it, can suffer ; merely because I 
am unable to illustrate that greatness and that justice. If I 
fail, I shall not be missed in the ranks of that phalanx which 
with so much ability and patriotism is arrayed in defence of their 
great and long established national system of protecting policy. 
For myself, I peril nothing by this attempt. My walk has been 
pursued in the sequestered vale of life. The events of this day 
will never affect or reach that retreat. The fields will have lost 
no verdure, the trees no leaf, no fruit, when, if it so please God, 
I may again look on them. If 1 fail, still I shall fail to do no 
one thing, which, by any ability of mine, could have been done. 
All which I could not do, I shall no otherwise remember, than 
that I earnestly labored after, but was unable to arrive at a per- 
formance of it. The honorable gentleman is in no condition of 
equal security. He does not believe this can be one of the fields 
of his fame ; if he win he could not wear my armor. Should 
he fall ; should the point of that truth, which, at one touch, de- 
molished the toad, and exhibited the demon ; should that glit- 
tering point reach him, in that upper region where he has long 
been expanding himself, and laboring his own apotheosis ; aye, 
Sir, should the ethereal blaze of that truth, but drop into the 
orbit of this bright exhalation, extinguished and shrunk to its 
native dimensions, it must fall to the proper level of its own 
element. 

"I will not, in considering this question, make any allusion 
to that independence, so valuable in itself, and so highly prized 
by all true patriots ; because all men must acknowledge it can- 
not exist, where one nation depends on another for the great 
staple accommodations of life. Neither will I, by any literary 
criticism, undertake to justify, though well I might, that little 
production, which the literary gentleman has called into judg- 
ment, because perhaps it was not in style suitable to a debate on 



I 12 MEMOIR OF 

the Tariff, or a Report on the Finances. Had he read a like num- 
ber of sentences from Massillon on fair dealing, or Pope on plagia- 
rism, these might have been as little to his taste. The passage 
read by him, is part of a Commencement discourse, pronounced, 
aye, Sir, and composed by me. It was addressed to the audi- 
ence, the Corporation, the Officers and the Classes of Brown 
University, when I graduated at the Commencement of 1796. 
It was published, not by me, but by the Classes of the University. 
Some parts of it have been placed in the school books, and often 
without censure or reproach, declaimed in the seminaries of 
New-England. The gentleman has read some passages of it, 
and by doing that in his manner, has succeeded in rendering 
both them and himself quite ridiculous. Had he in the same 
manner ruminated some leaves of Pericles or Tully, and then 
thrown them out, he would doubtless have succeeded in render- 
ing what passed through his peculiar criticism, equally odious 
and loathsome. Who, Sir, would have tasted the clean, conse- 
crated and abundant feast of the Trojans, when the flight of 
harpies had once touched and defiled the rich viands ?" 

" This great national system of impost, and the whole do- 
mestic production brought into existence by it, together with 
the entire consumption of your country, taking benefit from the 
superior excellency and diminished price of all such products, 
have altogether fallen under the high displeasure of the Honor- 
able Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. He has 
committed various acts of eloquence, and attempted sundry 
deeds of wit; and all and singular, his words and movements, 
have been in great derogation of the premises. Could he, Sir, 
give volume and velocity to his words, and transfuse into that 
embodied stream their moral meaning, under physical forms, 
what a si roc, what a blast of desolation, would have spread 
from this House to the prairies of the West, the lakes of the 
North, and the uttermost waters of the East ! He has de- 
nounced, before this House, your whole system, as unjust, op- 
pressive, and tyrannical. Like British legislation before our 
independence, it is the arbitrary exaction of calculating, avari- 



T R I S T A M BURGE S. 



113 



cioijs power, and exercised upon unrepresented, wronged, and 
exhausted colonies. The system is a system of legislative tory- 
ism. Its perfection will be our national destruction. The very 
earth, he exclaims, cries out against all American manufacture. 
The eldest curse of Heaven upon us, we are still compelled and 
confined, and our whole race, in all their generations, to eternal 
warfare with hriars and thorns. The incalculable abundance, 
cheapness, and fertility of lands, point out our course for coming 
centuries. Under these fearful considerations, the gentleman 
had long pondered on c the exploded errors of less enlightened 
ages,' found so ably expressed in the old-fashioned way of telling 
the truth, by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his Report. He 
then sat down to relieve the nation from all the evils of errone- 
ous financial legislation. Without any aid at all from three of 
his associates, and, apparently, not much assisted by the other 
three, the honorable gentleman has laid on your table his, aye, 
Sir, his Report 'on the State of the Finances.' About to aston- 
ish and refresh all parts of the country with a plantation of new 
and fruitful opinions, he selected the most thrifty stocks of para- 
mount Northern absurdity, as they had been grown in the Bos- 
ton nursery, and engrafting on them his own indigenous 
Southern scions, all hopeful twigs, he has certainly produced 
such a wilderness of 'true no meaning,' as never flourished 
since the days when • the bramble was king of the trees.' 

" What, Sir, are we to have revenue without taxation ? Or 
impost, without raising the price of imported products, on which 
it shall be raised 1 Shall the new impost laws take from do- 
mestic production the right to sell at the market price 1 Or, 
does he intend to come out with a plain proposition, to relieve 
I all foreign, by placing his new impost on domestic products % 
j At any rate, the whole sugar-planting of the South, and the 
I sheep-rearing, flax and hemp-growing, with all the cloth-man- 
lufacturing, and all the productions of the West, the North, and 
the East, must be given up, and abandoned. We, with so 
much cheap and fertile land, can grow but two crops, cotton- 
wool for the English manufacturers, and corn for ourselves, 
their dependants, their slaves. Our rivers and waterfalls are to 

o 



114 MEMOIR O I 

be restored to their natural condition, and left for the examina- 
tion of travellers, or the musings of poets. Skilled and scientific 
labor shall be abandoned, that we may all be initiated into the 
first mysteries of the axe and the hoe. Our machinery, with a 
hundred hands, and each more cunning than her's, the famed 
house-wife of Ithica, shall be sent back to the English, who 
claim them by right of invention, and who can, as the gentle- 
man says, use them without any laws for protection. It is a 
mode for multiplying men not known to the course of nature. 
The English nation may suffer by it, and the American People 
become too independent of our great customers for cotton and 
tobacco. No plan hitherto known, or practised in the South, 
can hold any way with this Northern mystery of multiplying 
laborers. We consume, says the gentleman, twenty-five years 
in doubling our stock, and that, too, in complexion and muscle, 
with some loss of original vigor. These men-makers of the 
North, will turn you out several thousand in a summer. The 
Constitution is in danger. This manufacturing system, and all 
law T s encouraging and protecting it, must be cut up by the roots,, 
or the balance of population, wealth, and power, between the 
North and South, will tremble, and be disturbed, if not destroyed. 

" Sir, this Southern, this new system of policy, is the very 
system devised for us when English Colonies. They would 
continue us corn-growing States — what Sicily was ; what the 
conquered coasts of Carthage were to Rome ; we might then 
have been, and the gentleman's policy would render us now, the 
granary of England. No, Sir, not quite so favorable ; we must 
sell our corn to other nations ; and then buy our manufactures 
of the English. Their statesmen then would not, and the 
statesmen of the new school will not, the honorable gentleman 
would not now, let us manufacture for ourselves, no, not even 
a ' hob nail.' 

" Nothing, Sir, would so fatally fix on us a dependence on 
England, as the abandonment of manufactures ; and the devot- 
ing our whole capital to agriculture. We are encouraged to do 
this, says he, because lands are cheap. Will it further give us 
encouragement, to be told that corn, also, is cheap? What arc 



T R I S T A M BURGES. 115 

the profits on agricultural capital, in the wool, and in the corn- 
growing States ? Is it three or but two per cent. 1 The whole 
landed interest, in England, separate from the leasehold interest 
therein, which belongs to the farmers, produces a rent, equal to 
three per cent, per annum on its whole value. The farming 
capital is invested in the same land, at the rate of somewhat 
more than four pound sterling, per acre. About ninety-eight 
millions of acres, are under such improvement. The whole 
farming capital is about four hundred million pounds sterling. 
The yearly profits did, in 1794, rise above twelve per cent. 

"The rate of profit, on agricultural capital, is now nearly 
three times as great, in England, as it is in America. — 
All increase of capital must multiply produce, and by reducing 
price, lower the rate of profit. The abandonment of manufac- 
turing would thus encumber and sink agriculture, and thereby 
diminish our means to purchase ; while, at the same time, it 
would multiply our want of foreign manufactured products. It 
would have a reversed effect on England. The increased de- 
mand, from the calls of our consumption, would increase their 
manufacturing productions; and by increasing the demand for 
agricultural produce, English agriculture, secured behind the 
iron barrier of English corn-laws, would enjoy, exclusively, the 
benefit of supplying the manufacturers of our entire clothing. 

" The American, Sir, who could advise such a policy, would 
have voted against the Declaration of Independence. Carry it 
into complete operation, and you chain the people of this nation 
to the foot of the English throne. You will be as dependant on 
that power, in ten years, for your legislation, as you must be for 
your wearing apparel. Will this House, at that time, pretend 
to any thing like independence, when their very hats, so neces- 
sary, as they probably will be, in all legislation, cannot be worn, 
but by English permission 1 

" Is the great system of American policy mere toryism ? The 
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has said it. 
Sir, the great whig principle, of the People of this country, was 
embodied in ail the great acts of the Revolution. It admitted 
no dependence on England, inconsistent with honest, unawed, 



116 MEMOIR OF 

and uninfluenced freedom. It was placed on record by the De- 
claration of Independence. The events of that day did not call 
it into existence. The principle was inherent, innate, and ger- 
man, to the heart of every true American. No ' right divine 
in man,' was acknowledged by such patriots. They had not 
learnedj'and they would not know, the enormous faith ' of many 
made for one.' The tories of that day lingered round the throne ; 
labored to perpetuate American dependence ; and cherished, and 
have ever been toiling, to rekindle all the old embers of English 
influence, in our country. Every demonstration of the whig- 
principle has been hostile to English power and friendly to 
American Independence. The very men who toiled and periled 
all, to establish your independence, afterwards founded this 
glorious form of Government ; and so soon as it was organized) 
they also enacted your system of impost for revenue, encourage- 
ment and protection ; and thus finishing their illustrious politi- 
cal action, delivered down to posterity, the great heritage of In- 
dependence, with all its muniments, and the abundant resources 
for its preservation. Now, Sir, on any day, of any year of our 
redemption, has any man, any Representative of independent 
Americans, thus unadvisedly, blasphemed the great principle, 
under which all these glorious events have been brought to this 
august consummation ! Wo betide the times, when we shall 
give up" the American System ; the embodied and enacted les- 
sons of practical wisdom, in exchange for any of the wild, 

miserable theories of inexperienced rashness." 

******** 

" The gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. McDuffie,) for- 
getting that he had so often denounced all protection, as, upon 
the very face of it, nothing but entire taxation, and forgetting 
too, that it is in appearance only, a law imposing a tax, but 
really, a law repealing one ; but eager in his chase of abomina- 
ble things, stopt and told us, ' a tariff bill was the Veiled Prophet 
of Khorassan ; an impostor promising to give the most pleasing 
and useful things — but, in fact, giving things the most odious 
and destructive.' Now, the gentleman mistook the parable, as 
well as the fact to be illustrated. The Tariff, by making an 



TRISTAM BURGES, 117 

impost law, promises, or rather threatens taxation, of all things 
the most odious ; but, by effecting protection to domestic pro- 
ducts, it diminishes their price, and, thereby, repeals taxation — of 
all things the most pleasant. It threatens evil, but gives good. 
The Veiled Prophet promised good, but gave evil. ' Therein, 
all but the gentleman may note a diversity. 5 

" The gentleman must have drawn on the character of the 
Veiled Prophet, when lie dre\v his remarkable picture of a South- 
ern advocate of the 'American System. 5 The Prophet of Kho- 
rassan was a real being, of flesh and blood, and not a mere 
creation of the genius of Moore. He has been faithful to the 
historic character, though he has given some illustration, by 
adding the drapery of fiction. The Veiled Prophet was, of all 
men, to all appearance, the most pure and patriotic man of the 
East — for so long a time as that appearance continued. All 
popular doctrines became parts of his creed, and all popular 
projects for improving the condition of the people, in all sections 
of the country, came under his patronage. He aimed at the 
supreme power ; and, to secure that object, he became all things 
to all men. When a common man, he wore a veil, to conceal 
a loathsome deficiency of feature. Pretending, afterwards, to 
inspiration, he improved his veil into a rich cloth of silver ; and 
announced to the people, that high converse with God had 
given such brightness to his countenance, that none could look 
upon it until purified from all the stains of time. Such was the 
machinery employed by the Prophet of Khorassan, to secure 
popularity, power, and supreme command. The concluding 
scene of his history has been told by the gentleman. 

" Was his character of a Southern advocate of the great and 
true policy of our country, a fiction, or like that of the Veiled 
Prophet, of a mixed quality ? I cannot recollect all the traits of 
abomination crowded on the canvass. No feature was better 
than the worst of Cromwell 5 s. All was shaded and deepened 
by ambition, uncontrollable, and never to be satisfied. Let such 
a man of the South, said the gentleman, but declare himself for 
this system, and do it merely to achieve for himself whatever 
power he may desire, you never can discover the imposture. Is 



118 MEMOIR OF 

this history, and designed for reproach ; or is it prophecy, and 
intended for denunciation 1 If the first, we thank the gentle- 
man for the story of the Prophet of Khorassan. He has lifted 
the silver veil ; and that, too, before the drugged bowl had fin- 
ished the entire ritual of the feast. 

' Who would not frown, if such a man now be, 
Who would not weep had Lowndes alive been he.' " 

******** 

" The cotton-gin is a Yankee notion. Whitney, who invent- 
ed this machine, could have no views to any exclusive benefit 
resulting from the use of it, to New-England. It has probably 
doubled the profit of cotton-planting in the South. South Car- 
olina has a fair right to estimate its value ; for that State gave 
the inventor fifty thousand dollars for the right to use it. Other 
cotton-growing States may tell how useful it is ; though that 
utility to them, may be no benefit to the inventor of this Yan- 
kee notion. 

" In the last war, redeeming bank bills at sight, with gold 
and silver, was peculiarly a Yankee notion. It was, I believe, 
very little practised out of New-England. Nay, so great was 
the aversion to this practice, even at the Seat of Government, 
that it is said to have been the constant custom of certain offi- 
cers, to select and separate all New-England bank bills, from 
any sums of money going into the Treasury, and supply their 
places with the bills of such banks only, as were known not to 
pay gold or silver for their bills. This apparent governmental 
disapprobation of this Yankee notion, may have been only a 
slander, like many others got up during that period, and uttered 
against New-England. For the Committee, which had the 
examination of that, with other weighty matters, never could 
agree, so as to make any report concerning it. 

" This Yankee notion was not practised at all, by some 
banks ; nor would they allow themselves the means of practising 
it, How much gold could, Sir, have been found in the vaults 
of all the banks, owned by the two districts of the two gentle- 
men from Kentucky, (Mr. Daniel and Mr. WicklifTe,) who seem 
to have made a conscience of abusing New-En gl arid in thi> 



TRISTAM BURGES. 119 

debate ? It is said an ounce of gold may be hammered out, 
carefully, until it would make a cover for a vessel, no matter of 
what kind, a snuff-box, if you please, as broad as the orbit of the 
planet Saturn. This orbit, you know, Sir, is much broader 
than that of our earth, which is but one hundred and ninety 
millions of miles in diameter. Now, so odious was this Yankee 
notion, of paying gold for their own bank bills, in the districts of 
those gentlemen, that had all the gold, in all the vaults of all 
their banks, been put into one lump, put under the hammer, 
and beaten out to a degree of equal tenuity, it would not have 
produced a sheet large enough to cover and gild the entire face 
of a single one dollar bill. No, Sir, the custom of redeeming 
their bank bills with gold and silver, was, during all that war, a 
Yankee notion, and almost peculiar to New-England. 

" New-England is often censured, on this floor, for not having 
approved of that war. It is true they did disapprove of the war. 
What then, who supplied the sinews of the controversy 1 More 
capital went to the aid of that war from New-England, than 
went to it, from the whole region south of the Potomac and 
Cumberland, together with the two districts of the two gentle- 
men from Kentucky, in addition. This was one of our Yankee 
notions. 

" In that war, too, New-England sent some other Yankee no- 
tions to the service. Such were Hull, Morris, M'Donough, 
Perry, the capture of the Guerriere, Java, and of the fleets on 
Erie and Champlain. When Oliver Hazard Perry, and his little 
band of heroes, terminated their march, and stept out of the 
green wilderness upon the white beach of that lake, they beheld 
6 St. George's banner broad and gay,' floating from the British 
mizenmast, over its quiet waters. He could not reach the ene- 
my, but by the aid of ships. These stood above him in the 
trees, then flourishing in leaf. By incessant and well-directed 
labor and skill, the very forest seemed to leap into the lake ; and 
in ninety days, he beheld a gallant fleet afloat and moored be- 
fore him ; equipt and provided, at all points, for the war. He 
pursued ; no, not pursued, for they would not flee ; ' He met 
the enemy, and they were ours.' 



120 MEMOIR OF 

"Sir, the conquerors of those two lakes, with the officers, 
sailors and marines under their command, have filled the annals 
of your history with imperishable glory. 

" In the old war we had another Yankee notion. It was 
sent to the South, and from the pressure of the times, was then 
in great demand. This was more than a single suit of armor, 
though forged by no fabled god of the fire. It was a Yankee 
blacksmith : one who gave his own right hand to the war, and 
himself, became the panoply of a whole region. The entire 
chivalry of the South, of Georgia and the sister Carolinas, took 
direction by the flaming edge of his sword, and marched with 
him to victory and to triumph/' 

The speech on this Resolution, occupied more than six hours 
in the delivery, and as a whole, it excels all others made by Mr. 
Burges on the Tariff Question, 

Rhode-Island, in the course of the discussion, was accused of 
threatening a dissolution of the Union. "Rhode-Island," said 
he, in reply — ■" Rhode-Island threaten to dissolve the Union ! 
Never, Sir, until by some convulsion of nature she may be 
plucked out from the refreshing bosom of salubrious skies and 
perennial waters, and cast down in that burning region where 
the 'dog star rages;' where 'sultry Sirius sears the sandy plains;' 
where the thirsty inhabitant pants, each for individual and inde^ 
pendent dominion. With Rhode-Island, Sir, this Union was a 
holy marriage covenant, * and for better for worse, until God do. 
part you,' 

" Rhode-Island, Sir, would rather mingle and blend her light 
with this constellation of States, than be any ' bright and par- 
ticular star, shining or blazing in the solitude of her own peculiar 
firmament.' " 

There is no point more prominent in Mr. Burges's character, 
than his strong and ardent attachment to New-England. It is 
not strange that he should possess such feelings, and on all 
proper occasions express them. New-England is a hallowed 
and cherished spot. It is here, that the first blow of the Revo- 
lution was struck — here the first drop of blood was spilled ; 
the treasure of her citizens, was generously proffered to sustain 



TRISTAM BURGES. 121 

the struggle ; the prayers of thousands were breathed for a safe 
deliverance ; and when it came, gratitude and joy filled all 
hearts. He remembers those perilous times, and is proud of the 
spirit manifested by the people. It is the spot, too, where he 
was born, and where his children are sleeping, and where are 
the graves of his fathers. Who must not love a land, endeared 
by such associations ? 



CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Burges is re-elected to Congress. — Chief Justice Eddy. — Aspect of Parties. 
— Speech on the Amendment to the Appropriation Bill. — Dinner to Mr. 
Burges from his Constituents. — He Addresses them. — His Oration at Provi- 
dence. — Extracts. — His Oration before one of the Literary Societies at Prov- 
idence. — Extracts. 

A Convention assembled in one of the towns of Rhode- 
Island, in July, 1829, to nominate a candidate for Representa- 
tive to Congress, in opposition to Mr. Burges. The gentleman 
selected by that Convention was Samuel Eddy. As we have 
seen, Mr. Burges was first chosen in preference to him, in 1825. 
At this period, (1829,) Mr. Eddy was Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court of Rhode-Island. By his intelligence, unbending 
integrity, and general reputation, he was deemed the most pow- 
erful, as also unexceptionable candidate, that could be selected 
in opposition to Mr. Burges. Few political controversies have 
been more animated than that preceding this election. The 
friends of Chief Justice Eddy, represented him as unfavorable 
to the American System, and other great questions, with which 
the security and prosperity of the State were intimately blended. 
The people, however, had tried Mr. Burges four years, and 
were satisfied with his services. Accordingly, he was re-elected 
by the largest vote ever known in the State ; having received a 
majority in every town except two. 

From the character and influence of his opponent, the vigor- 
ous measures pursued to defeat his election, and the novel aspect 
of political parties at that time, this result could not but gratify 
the feelings of Mr. Burges, and make him more jealous of his 
opinions and duties. 

A marked event had occurred in our national history, since 
the election of Representatives in 1827. For the first time, a 
man was selected for his exploits as a military chieftain, to con- 



TRISTAM B URGES. 123 

trol the affairs of our civil government. Fears were entertained 
of his principles, and the rules of conduct by which he might 
act. A very large minority had protested against his claims, 
and labored with an honest zeal to secure the re-election of Mr. 
Adams. The will of the people, however, was in favor of Gen- 
eral Jackson, and he had been inaugurated President of the 
United States. This w T as the first election in Rhode-Island 
since his inauguration ; and the first under the new aspect of 
parties. When, therefore, Mr. Burges resumed his seat as a 
Representative from Rhode-Island, he felt confidence in the 
course he had hitherto pursued ; and gained instruction from 
the original fountain of power, as to his future course. From 
the beginning, he had been a resolute opponent of President 
Jackson's pretensions ; and now, he was especially obligated to 
scrutinize every measure originating with him, or his friends in 
Congress. During the session of 1829-80, many exciting 
questions of a party character were debated. Sickness prevented 
Mr. Burges from speaking on any of them ; even from attending 
the House, until the last week preceding the adjournment. 

At the next session, however, he distinguished himself by a 
Speech on the Appropriation Bill. 

Mr. Stanberry, of Ohio, moved to amend the clause in the 
General Appropriation Bill for 1831, appropriating salaries to 
Foreign Ministers, by striking out the word Russia, and substi- 
tuting forty-five for fifty-four thousand dollars. The ground of 
this motion was, that the United States were not represented at 
the Court of Russia, nor was it probable that they would be for 
some time : an appropriation, therefore, was not necessary, and 
the same should be stricken from the Bill. 

Mr. John Randolph had been appointed in the year 1830, by 
the President of the United States, as Minister to Russia. The 
President, in his annual Message to Congress, informed them 
that the health of Mr. Randolph was so delicate, that he had 
been compelled to leave his post "for the advantage of a more 
genial climate ;" and added, " when his health is such as to 
justify his return to St. Petersburg, he will resume the discharge 
of his official duties." 



124 MEMOIR OF 

The mover of this amendment contended, that Mr. Randolph 
did not and could not reside in Russia ; that if he received the 
salary, the House would pay him for a constructive residence ; 
and that if his public services demanded compensation, it should 
be voted directly, not indirectly. 

The amendment and remarks of Mr. Stanberry, occasioned a 
long, animated and interesting discussion. Several gentlemen 
from Virginia, Mr. Cambreleng of New-York, Mr. Wayne of 
Georgia, and others, opposed the amendment. The talents, 
public services, and moral worth of Mr. Randolph, were eulo- 
gized ; and his removal to a more favorable climate, excused, 
because he could not bear the extreme severity of a Russian 
winter. On the other hand, it was contended by Mr. Mallary, 
and others, that our situation was delicate as regarded the 
European Powers — that it was necessary to have a Minister at 
the Court of Russia, to hold intercourse with the Emperor — to 
meet him face to face, and to explain our mutual relations. 

Mr. Randolph's abandonment of his mission was further jus- 
tified by the example of the late Rufus King ; who, on his way 
from Liverpool to London, remained a short time at Chelten- 
ham. Mr. King, however, was not accredited at the Court of 
St. James. He did not even tarry at Cheltenham, until the 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Canning, had assured him 
that Ministers were then leaving London, for the summer vaca- 
tion ; and that, the interests of the United States would not be 
endangered by his visit at Cheltenham. Mr. King's reputation 
as a patriot, diplomatist, and gentleman, exemplary in all his 
relations, was a sufficient guarantee for his faithful performance 
of public duties. Not so with Mr. Randolph. He was known 
as a wayward man, possessed of no qualifications for such a 
mission : it was acknowledged that his health was impaired, 
and from his habits he was unfitted for patient investigation of 
national interests. His appointment, therefore, under such 
peculiar circumstances, was condemned. 

On the thirteenth of January, Mr. Burges addressed the 
Committee, on the proposed amendment. It was known on the 
preceding day, that he intended to speak ; and the House was 



TRISTAM BURGES. 125 

filled by those anxious to hear him. Although he consumed 
but half an hour, yet the audience, while delighted by his wit, 
was instructed by a general survey of our relations with the 
Russian Government, at all times important. 1 The comparison 
of Mr. Randolph to the comet, is very appropriate. "The 
crafty Secretary of State, (Mr. Van Buren,) feared the comet 
might again return, and visit his political hemisphere. He had 
seen it blaze in perihelium, 

'With fear of change perplexing men in power.' 

He deemed it wise to remove this star of malign influence to 
another sky ; that the people of other regions might trace its 
eccentric path, and, if possible, mark out its winding course." 2 

Immediately after Mr. Burges concluded, he was attacked by- 
Mr. J. S. Barbour and Mr. Coke of Virginia, Mr. Wayne of 
Georgia, and Mr. Cambreleng of New- York. As soon as he 
could obtain the floor, he replied to each of these gentlemen ; 
and especially to the latter, in a style never excelled for its 
refined, yet powerful sarcasm. 3 

A public dinner was given to him in April, 1831, at Provi- 
dence, immediately after his return from Washington. On this 
occasion, he gave his constituents a brief account of his steward- 
ship ; referring to the efforts made during the session of 1830-31 
in behalf of the Judiciary of the United States, of Treaties, and 
of every measure, by which the interests, honor and glory of our 
common country are sustained. In its views and sentiments, 
this Address is confined chiefly to the politics of Rhode-Island. 
It was made to influence the then approaching State Election, 
and it had its intended effect ; proving in this, as in other cases, 
the influence Mr. Burges exercises over his constituents. 4 

1 See Part II. 

2 This Speech was published in all sections of the Union, and commended 
for its perspicacity and eloquence. 

3 This Speech is in Part II. 

4 A large number of citizens of New-York invited him to a public dinner, in 
March, 1831. This was a voluntary tribute to worth and learning. In the 
invitation, the Committee expressed admiration of the able and eloquent expo- 
sition of the Law of Nations made by him during the session of 1830-31, and 
the independence manifested in all his efforts to expose corruption and usur- 



126 MEMOIR OF 

Near the conclusion, there is a passage indicating the tone of 
his feelings, which could not be repressed, even on such an oc- 
casion. " The place of our birth," says he, " is ever dear to 
memory. The green hill-top, from which the young eye first 
looked at the rising sun ; the brook, the forest, the field, where 
in early life we have sported or labored, I know, cannot be for- 
gotten. Indeed, this love for the land of our birth, is the highest 
pledge which we can give, that faith and allegiance shall be 
kept, with the land of our adoption. We can, it is true, though 
not without a sigh, depart from the graves of our fathers ; but, 
oh ! who can ever tear himself from the tomb of his children !" 
This allusion so beautiful, united with his manner, touched 
every heart, and called forth a spontaneous note of sympathy. 
The graves of our fathers are indeed sacred, and the inscription 
on the monument reared to their memory is cherished : — but 

pation. The President of the day, Gen. Jacob R. Van Rensselaer, observed, 
" that the company had assembled to perform a pleasing and acceptable service. 
They had met, not for the purpose of bowing at the footstool of power, to de- 
precate its wrath, or implore its mercy ; nor yet to ask a participation of its 
favors ; but for the purpose of bearing testimony, in favor of an individual, 
who, with an ardor, a zeal, and talent seldom surpassed, or even equalled, had 
ventured to attack the enemy in his strong-hold, and strip him of the false cov- 
ering under which he had deluded and deceived the people." 

Upon this occasion Mr. Burges made an excellent Address. He observed, 
that from his earliest recollection, the approbation of his fellow-citizens had 
enlivened his hopes, cheered his exertions, and been dear to his heart. — 
Whether guiding the plough, or wielding the instruments of mechanic labor ; 
whether engaged in forensic toils, at the solicitation of friends, or in the ser- 
vice of our common country, that approbation had been among his most en- 
gaging motives. 

A public dinner was given a few days previous in the same hall, to a distin- 
guished Senator, Mr. Webster. In alluding to the circumstance, Mr. Burges 
happily remarked, that the Constitution of our country, had recently from the 
same place where he then stood, received such exposition and eulogium, and 
so perfect and finished, as neither to require, nor to admit addition or improve- 
ment. The boldest artist of Greece, never attempted to give a new excellence 
to the Minerva of Phidias. 

Considering the great principles of the Constitution as settled and established, 
he discussed some of its provisions as they have been reduced to practice, un- 
der the several administrations of the General Government; and especially how 
they were sustained by the existing administration. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 127 

the tomb of our children, whose faculties were expanding, who 
promised blessings to declining years, oh ! who can forget how 
they went, one by one, to that land, where the cares and passions 
of this world do not reach. The tomb erected by filial love, and 
consecrated by filial affection, is the chosen symbol by which 
virtue and piety may be illustrated and transmitted. It is the 
spot where friends may make their pilgrimage, and be consoled. 
Over its silent, yet eloquent marble, the winds may sweep, and 
the storms may rage ; but the soul that sleeps there, will not 
awake, until a new and brighter morning. 

On the Fourth of July, 1831, Mr. B urges addressed the citi- 
zens of Providence. In his discourse on that occasion, he con- 
sidered the history of our country as the epitaph of its illustrious 
founders. A minute narrative of the events of the Revolution 
was not deemed necessary ; not because they ought not to be 
remembered ; for they cannot be forgotten. They will be told 
by millions to listening millions, yearly, daily, hourly, from age 
to age. Those events, and their effects, are the foundation of 
our national literature, the theme of popular applause, the cause 
of gratitude and reverence. 

The general topic of this Oration was, some of the principles 
which produced our Revolution, and some of the events which 
have followed it ; disclosing to us, how much the people have 
yet to perform, before they will have completed that beautiful 
Temple of National Freedom, the foundations of which were 
laid broad and deep, by our fathers. The effect produced upon 
the assembly, by the following passage, can never be forgotten. 
It seemed as if the voice of Tully was indeed speaking of " the 
first day of war" — of the battles of Lexington, and Bunker Hill, 
and Yorktown. You could almost see thrones tottering, at the 
arousing spirit of liberty — almost feel the bland and animating 
gale of freedom breathed over the land of Livy and Tacitus ; 
rejoice that the birth-place of eloquence and song, like her own 
Pallas, again stood erect among the nations ; and read the in- 
spiring sentiment, which seemed to be inscribed in letters of 
gold, on the wing of the awakening eagle, under which Poland 
marched to battle. 



128 MEMOIR OF 

" I see a few men here," says Mr. Bulges, " who must remem- 
ber the first day of war. It is the oldest event alive in my recol- 
lection. Though distant from the field twice the length of this 
State ; yet, the alarm reached our little hamlet before the sun 
went down. Every cheek was pale ; but every eye was on fire. 
' Lexington' was the gathering word ; and the name flew from 
man to man, from colony to colony, as the lightning shoots 
along the dark bosom of the summer cloud. Almost at once, 
one spirit pervaded the whole country, and while our enemies 
were taking counsel to subdue us one by one, we had become a 
nation. Bunker Hill was next the battle cry ; and field after 
field, gave each a new word of war, until the roar of the last 
cannon, the shout of the last victory was heard ; and the last 
sword of the enemy delivered up at Yorktown. 

" What are some of the effects produced by our Revolution ? 
Surrounding nations looked anxiously on while the great con- 
troversy was on trial ; and at the moment of success, the light 
of our triumph, rising high and glorious, was seen by the people 
in regions the most distant. Under this light, the great princi- 
ples of our Revolution have spread, and extended ; and that 
improvement in the political condition of nations, then com- 
menced, has, from that hour up to the present moment, been in 
progress. Letters have been and now continually are dissemi- 
nating knowledge ; men have made many discoveries concerning 
their rights ; and are making mighty efforts to regain them. 
France, after years of anarchy, blood, and iron despotism, seems 
at last to have succeeded in establishing constitutional freedom. 
In other parts of Europe, liberty is awakening from the slumber 
of ages. At every movement of the arousing spirit, some throne 
may be seen tottering ; and you may hear the shout of some 
outraged, some hoping nation. Spain may yet shake from her 
bosom the polluting power of the Bourbon. Twice since Canova 
wrought the form of Washington in Italian marble, the bland 
and animating gale of freedom has breathed over that glorious 
land of Livy and Tacitus. We have almost heard the divine 
voice of Tully ; we have almost seen the crimson steel of Bru- 
tus. The birth-place of song and eloquence, the region of arts 



TRISTAM BURGES. 129 

and arms, Greece, so many ages bent to the earth with chains, 
is free ; walks again on continent and island, erect, like her 
own Pallas, in native majesty ; and she, who was the ancient 
teacher of all other nations, is now the lovely disciple of our 
own. 

" Would you find a country consecrated by the imperishable 
names of her patriots and defenders ? Then look for the cradle 
of Sobieski, and Kosciusco. Glorious Sarmatia ! thou art this 
day, as we were, when this day, like the passover of God's own 
people, was set apart from every day in the sun's whole course ; 
and as a perpetual festival, hallowed and consecrated to free- 
dom. The principles of our revolution, and the very name of 
the United States of America, seem to be inscribed, in blazing 
gold, on the wing of every eagle under which Poland marches 
to battle. Could we believe that ' the spirits of the just made 
perfect,' might ever again, in human form, visit the sunshine of 
this lower world, how could we doubt that our Washington is 
now directing the ■ storm of war' in another hemisphere ; and 
leading another nation to victory and independence ] In the 
hero of Warsaw, who has not seen a like devotedness of patriot- 
ism, and a kindred skill in warfare : the sudden and silent seiz- 
ure of events ; the cautionary delay; the patience of endurance ; 
and all other, the illustrious excellencies of the great Fabius of 
our country'? God of Armies ! shelter, we beseech thee, cover 
I that head in the day of battle ; and give, once more, give sue* 
1 cess to the cause of Washington." 

The Federal Adelphi of Rhode-Island, a Society connected 
I with Brown University, invited Mr. Burges to deliver before 
I them the Anniversary Address, in September, 1831 ; which 
(invitation he accepted. The successive calls on his time, how- 
lever, left him but a few days to write what he intended to 
(speak on that occasion. The very papers to which he had first 
< committed his thoughts, he was obliged to carry with him to 
the delivery, and without the slightest correction, the discourse 
was published, at the earnest solicitation of the Society. 

Though prepared for a particular occasion, and intended in 
its general thoughts and suggestions, for the exclusive benefit 



130 



M EMOIll <> I 



of the Society before whom it was pronounced, it contains some 
of the best specimens of Mr. Burges's writings.' In this discourse, 
he refers to the character of " Rhode-Island College," as it was 
called in primitive times; that, though scientific, it was emi- 
nently classical ; and that the pure and catholic spirit of the 
great founder of Rhode-Island, lived and breathed in every part 
of its government and instruction. The qualities and powers of 
mind required in various departments of study, the discipline 
best adapted to improvement in reasoning and taste, and the 
acquisitions necessary to attain that palmy state of eloquence 
which belongs to the halls of Justice, Legislation, and the 
Temple of Divine Worship, are each distinctly examined. In 
relation to eloquence, the great Athenian, highly as he prized 
action in public speaking, and assiduously as he labored to per- 
fect himself in all the graces of Oratory, yet he bestowed more 
time and attention in the cultivation of his mind ; and in adding 
to his other accomplishments whatever could strengthen the rea- 
soning faculties, chasten the imagination, perfect method in dis- 
course, and impart to all his sentences a rich, pure, and beautiful 
flow of language. And in this is the true spring of genuine 
eloquence. The mind should be a storehouse of deep and 
varied learning, and then may be acquired those other excel- 
lencies which adorn elocution. 

The science taught in the schools, denominated Intellectual 
Philosophy, is approved, so far as it pursues a mere analysis of 
the mind ; but, when it inquires, how the mind holds converse 
with the world around, it often leads to uncertainty, doubt, and 
final scepticism. 1 After explaining the systems of numerous 

1 This objection to the systems of ancient and modern philosophers, embraces 
a large proportion of works on ethical science. It is a prevailing complaint 
against moralists, that they are too cold and mechanical, and confined in their 
views. We commend Stuart, for example, the last relic of the school founded 
by Reid, for profound thought, and refined sentiments, and unwearied labors in 
disseminating valuable truths in intellectual philosophy. We need, however, 
larger, more practical views of human nature. The capacities of the soul for 
suffering and enjoyment, its far-reaching thoughts and emotions, its deep 
passions, its longings after the mysterious, should be more fully unfolded. And 
then we require the rules and limits belonging to Man, not as a creature of 
circumstance and accident; but, as a sentient, rational being; living in the 



TRISTAM BURGEE 131 

philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Pyrrho, Des Cartes, 
Locke, and Hume, he concluded with this tender allusion to his 
own departed son. 

"I knew a youthful mind, ardent, inquisitive, and by his 
thirst for knowledge, in the study of Hume's Philosophy, led 
into a region, first, of uncertainty, then, of doubt. He was re- 
deemed from the gloom and darkness of doubt, by a study, now, 
I believe, excluded from some of the schools ; the study of 
Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion; and, by 

world, with powers conducting him to good or evil; with all his material and 
spiritual relations; his fears and hopes, and the changes which come over him 
from the cradle to the grave. We need a system, which, after clearly defining 
the theory, shall as clearly illustrate the practice; take man in infancy, in child- 
hood, in his meridian, and in his old age; speak of the dangers which sur- 
round him, the means to avoid them, the purposes of improvement, the value 
of wisdom, the precious germs wrapped up in every living soul, and the rich 
harvest which they promise. 

There is yet so much speculation on this grand topic, that a practical system 
of ethics has not been published. Some philosophers compare the mind to a 
piece of " wax, which may be softened too much to retain, or too little to re- 
ceive an impression. In childhood, the material is too soft, and gives way to 
all impressions. In old age, it is hard, and retains the impressions formerly 
made, but does not receive any new ones. In manhood, the consistence is at 
once proper to receive, and to retain the impressions which are made upon it." 
Aristotle leans to this theory. Cicero and Cluintillian allude to it, although 
they express but little confidence in the principle. 

In later times, the transcendental system introduced into Germany by Kant, 
flourished for a brief period, and died without a monument of extensive good. 
It numbered, however, many proselytes in that land of profound thought and 
varied learning. Its temporary success may be traced in part, to the elegant ac- 
complishments of its founder; and also to that love of mysticism predominant in 
the German character. Like all systems of philosophy, as far as we can under- 
stand, it abounds in artificial terms, speculations, false postulates, and of neces- 
sity false conclusions. It has elicited, however, amid powerful discussion, 
many simple and beautiful truths, for a belief in God, and the immortality of 
the soul. 

The elegant treatise of Sir James Mackintosh, and especially the work of 
Degerando, are the best ever published on the subject of intellectual philoso- 
phy. The latter contains sound, comprehensive, and practical views of human 
nature. It treats of man, his relations, duties, obligations, and hopes, in a 
manner deserving their importance. The study of such a work will never lead 
to doubt or scepticism. ^ 



132 



MEMOIR OF, &c. 



the efforts of a mind, imbued with all the attributes of that taste 
which must have objects for its admiration, its love, its adora- 
tion ; in the material, and mental Universe, and in their great 
and glorious Creator. 

" To one who observed it, the progress of such a mind was, 
indeed, a study ; anxious, fearful, triumphant ; and, though 
brief, like its mortal sojourn, yet, when Memory lends to Hope 
the light of joy, the eye does often seem to look on visions not 
of time ; the ear to hear as in the voice of one newly arrived 
from the confines of eternity ; 

*I've wing'd my flight from star to star, 
From world to luminous world, as far 

As the Universe spreads its flaming wall — 
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
And multiply each through endless years, 

One moment of Heaven is worth them all.' " 



CHAPTER X. 

Resolution for the Removal of Washington's Remains. — Mr. Burges advocates 
it. — Account of his Speech. — Mr. Mallary's Resolution. — Speech. — Memo- 
rial in relation to the American Colonization Society. — He is attacked by 
Mr. Blair. — Replies to him. 

By a joint Resolution of the Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives, a Committee was appointed in February, 1832, to carry 
into effect the Resolutions of Congress passed in 179.9, providing 
for the removal of the remains of Washington from Mount Ver- 
non, to be deposited under the centre of the Capitol. The 
Resolution was opposed, because its adoption would conflict 
with the Will of Washington ; wherein he desired that his body 
might be buried on his own plantation, without even the cere- 
mony of a funeral oration. It was further objected, that the 
character of Washington did not require the influence of such 
pageantry; and, as he was born in Virginia, and interred there 
by his own request, his venerated ashes ought not to be disturbed 
in their repose. 

This Resolution was advocated by Mr. Adams and Mr. Ed- 
ward Everett of Massachusetts, Mr. Burges, and several other 
members. The Speech of Mr. Burges is replete with thoughts 
appropriate to the' sacred theme. "The ever during marble," 
said he, " will give to coming generations, the form and the 
features of Washington ; and the traveller of future ages, shall 
learn where he may find his tomb. This House, this Mauso- 
leum of one, who, prospered by divine assistance, performed 
more for his country and for his race, than any other mere mor- 
tal, shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will 
come the brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our coun- 
try ; not to worship, but to stand by the sepulchre, and to re- 



134 



M EMOIR OF 



I umc the light of patriotism at the monument, of Washington." ' 
A Bill was introduced during the Session of 1831-32, by Mr. 
Mallary, of Vermont, Chairman of the Committee on Manufac- 
tures, for the prevention of Frauds on the Revenue. Mr. Mc- 
Duffie, a gentleman, as before stated, resolute and untiring in 
his opposition to the Tariff Laws, moved an amendment to that 
Bill. It proposed, after the first day of June, 1832, to repeal 
the Tariff Law of 1828, and to revive that of 1824 ; and after a 
definite period, provided further, to repeal the statute of 1824, 
and to leave that passed in 1816 in full force. 

Mr. Burges delivered a Speech in the House of Representa- 
tives on this Amendment proposed by Mr. McDuffie. After 
some general remarks with reference to the state of public opin- 
ion, and the means adopted to corrupt it, he continued — " Our 
ancestors migrated hither, to build a country, an independent 
country, as well for themselves, as for their descendants. When 
they had landed here, they looked out upon the earth on which 
they had placed their feet, and back again on the friendly bosom 
of the ocean which had borne them to these shores ; and then 
up to the clear, blue heaven over their heads ; and lifting their 
hands in thanksgiving and supplication to the God above, they 
resolved, under his guidance, to depend on those hands and 
those elements, for their subsistence, for their food, their clothing, 
and their habitation. Independence was their first aspiration ; 
independence of that country which had driven them into exile. 
From that hour to this, all true Americans, who have under- 
stood and pursued the great interests of this country, have lived 
and labored for this independence. All Britons, and friends of 
Britain ; all anti-Americans, as well before, as at, and since the 
Revolution, have opposed its growth and establishment ; or plot- 
ted and toiled for its subversion and overthrow. 

"It has been the great and established policy of England, from 
the first settlement of the Colonies, to this time, to confine the 
people of this country to agriculture, the fisheries, and commerce 
with herself and herself alone. The incipient efforts of our 



This Speech is in Part II. 



T RIST A M B U It (i E S. 135 

fathers to produce for themselves, either their own apparel, or 
the instruments of their labor, were, by English enactment, 
made a kind of colonial nuisance, and punished as a class of 
misdemeanors, against the peace and dignity of the crown. The 
patriots of those, like the patriots of these times, resolved, and 
never abandoned the resolution, to labor, as they might choose, 
either at the plough, the loom, or the sail. This conflict of pol- 
icy, this effort in the colonies for moral and physical independ- 
ence, and that British arrogance of dominion over the wants, 
and necessities of our ancestors, produced the revolutionary 
conflict. Moral and physical, not political independence, moved 
that great question. The tax on tea was incidental to more 
deep and weighty argument ; but not otherwise the moving 
cause than the lighted linstock that explodes the shell, which, in 
its course, carries terror and desolation through a beleagued city. 

" It was in support of this independence, that the whigs of the 
North and South first united. Here the Adamses, Hancocks, 
Otises, and Warrens, of New-England, met, and mingled their 
toil and their blood, with the Pinckneys, the Haynes, the Law- 
rences, and Sumptefs of South Carolina. On this ground, too, 
Greene, from the North, met, and re-united the scattered array 
of Southern war. 

" Where now is the patriotism of those times ? Do we in these 
Halls, hear its voice, exhorting to re-union, and cheering to 
associated effort 1 Is it not drowned in the angry roar of that 
torrent of malediction, which for so many days has been poured 
down from the stormy South, on the devoted region of New- 
England 1 Where, Sir, is the spirit of the Revolution ? Does 
it still live in our country'? Sir, it did not expire with Lowndes ; 
it did not, when deserted by his associate, abandon his lovely 
land of the sun. Men still live in that patriotic region, who 
make no compromise on questions of liberty and independence ; 
and who will never barter either, with any nation, for the poor 
privilege of selling their cotton at a better bargain." 

The amendment proposed by Mr. McDuffie, he considered as 
opposed, in all its forms, to the American System. In the 
speech made by Mr. McDuffie upon his amendment, he alleged 



136 MEMOIR OF 

that the effects of that System were, to reduce the market price 
of cotton and tobacco ; to compel the growers of those products 
to pay more than their just proportion of the revenue ; to secure 
a bounty to the sugar-making, grain-growing, and manufactur- 
ing States, on their products ; to deprive the South of their 
natural market, the market of England. Mr. Bulges took an 
enlarged view of these several allegations ; and by arguments 
plain and practical, and details minute and exact, he proved 
them to be untenable, and opposed to the real facts connected 
with the question. He then runs the doctrine, of bounties out 
into all its branches ; not believing in its soundness ; and demon- 
strates that the South has no cause to complain of its operations. 
Numerous other objections to the protective policy are refuted ; 
and all the principles advocated by the friends of Free Trade, 
condemned. 

" Sir, let our whole country adopt this policy, this English 
system, and from that time we are to England what Poland is 
to the other nations of Europe. The West will not do this ; 
the North will not do this. Do it who may, New-England 
will not. So long as one soldier of '75 lives* on our hills, or one 
soldier's dust sleeps in a grave on our battle-fields ; so long as 
the Fourth of July is a day in the Christian calender, New- 
England will not. By the souls of those men who fell at Lex- 
ington, and Bunker Hill, and Bennington, now beatified by 
redeeming mercy, New-England will not chain herself to the 
wheels of this odious System. 

"Will the South, the generous, the warm-hearted, the patri- 
otic South, do this % Will they leave us 1 plant their fields, 
that British royalty may reap their toil *? be tributaries, that a 
few demagogues may wear stars on the shoulder, or garters at 
the knee 1 When such a spirit is abroad in their land, will they 
not quest ion it ? 

' Be it a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, 

Bring with it airs from Heaven, or blasts from hell. 

Be its intents wicked, or charitable, 

It comes in such a questionable shape, 

That they will speak to it.' 



TRJSTAM BURGES. 137 

" South Carolina, of all these States once most devoted to this 
Union, go if thou wilt. Leave this brotherhood of republics, 
this home of equality in the new world, for alienage in the 
old, and secondary rights and honors with European royalty. 
Provide for thyself other relations ; alliance with England ! 
The union will be Sicyon with Macedonia ; Aratus, the Repub- 
lican with Antigonus the King. When his " beloved city was 
filled with foreign soldiers, when he beheld the family of his 
darling son dishonored, and felt the poison circulating in his 
veins, s such,' said the dying patriot to his weeping friend, ' such, 
Cephalon, are the fruits of royal friendship.' Alliance with 
England ! No matter by what name this connexion is known 
to politicians in South Carolina, it will be deemed by all free 
men in other lands, the lion and the lion's provider. 

" England, and what has England done for the South ? 
English avarice plundered from Africa her untamed barbarism, 
her wild freedom ; and when chained and whipt into slavery, 
imported and spread out the moral pestilence over her whole 
colonies of the South. Not only on you, and on you, and on 
you, was the scourge of nations inflicted, but on all those of 
* the cane-bearing Isles,' throughout the Carribean Sea. Why? 
and for whose benefit ] That this wretched slavery might toil ; 
that you, as overseers, might toil, and plough, and plant, and 
reap, and deliver to England the rich harvest. For what? 
For the very purpose, under the very System, this day, in this 
House, so earnestly demanded by you ; that her labor may be 
fed from your fields, and your harvest be taxed to furnish her 
revenue ; that they may be enriched by you, and you be made 
poor by them ; they be lords, you any thing they please. 

"What more would England do for the South, if more may 
be done ? Would she goad on that State to separate from the 
Union 1 Hear ; read ; and read all which is said, or written by 
her hirelings in Europe, or by her renegade hirelings in America. 
Of all, what is the amount ? Divide and conquer, whom, uni- 
ted, she cannot. Conquer the South by alliance. The North ? 
No, not the North ; nor the East ; nor the West. These they 
cannot — while there is a man, or a woman, or a child, left living 



138 MEMOIR OF 

in those regions, they cannot conquer them. Let them, as in 
other clays they did, pour the barbarism of Europe upon us. 
Each valley shall be a Golgotha ; each hill shall be steeped in 
blood to the top. Here we have lived free ; where we have 
lived, as we have lived, we will die ; and the winds of heaven 
shall, in those regions, blow over none but freemen, or the bones 
or graves of freemen.'" 

In 1832, there was a debate in the House of Representatives 
on the reading of a Memorial from certain British subjects, 
praying Congress to aid the American Colonization Society, as 
an efficient means of ultimately suppressing the African Slave 
Trade. 

Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, moved that the Memorial should be 
read. The motion created unusual excitement, and an ani- 
mated discussion. Mr. Blair, of South Carolina, accused Mr. 
Burges of reproaching the South on the subject of Slavery. He 
insisted that a disposition was manifested to agitate the Slave 
Question. " He could tell gentlemen, that when they moved 
that question seriously, they from the South would meet it else- 
where. It would not be disputed in that House, but in the 
open field, where powder and cannon would be their orators, 
and their arguments lead and steel." 

To this effusion, Mr. Burges thus replied : " Mr. Speaker ; in 
justice to the course I have pursued, I must be permitted to say 
a few words. I was not in the House when the Memorial was 
introduced ; and when the gentleman from Tennessee had made 
his motion for re-consideration, I did not know to what the 
gentleman alluded ; but when I perceived that the gentlemen 
from Tennessee and from Virginia were at issue, as to the con- 
tents of the paper, I moved that it might be read. I had no 
knowledge, whatever, of its contents, save that it came from 
British subjects, and that it was on the question of the foreign 
Slave Trade. Gentlemen will do me the justice, however 
indisposed some may be to do so, and however ready to insult 
my feelings, and to injure iny character ; yet the House, I am 
sure, will do me the justice to admit, that I have ever treated 
the subject of slavery in a manner calculated to quiet every 



TRISTAM BURGES. 189 

angry feeling. I have never sought to stir up any excitement 
on that subject. Those who remember the case of the slave of 
D'Auterive, and the debate to which it gave rise, will bear wit- 
ness, that the statements I then made, were such as to satisfy 
every gentleman coming from a slave-holding State, of my 
perfect conviction of the unconstitutionality of any interference 
of the General Government with the tenure of slave property. 
Yet, to-day, for some purpose, gentlemen have misrepresented 
my sentiments. The member from Virginia, (Mr. Patton,) has 
alluded to me as having said, that they of the South were afraid 
to have the paper read." 

[Mr. Patton answered, that he had alluded to Mr. Burges, 
who had said, " Are the gentlemen afraid to hear it ?'] 

" Well, now," replied Mr. Burges, " I asked whether gentle- 
men were afraid to hear the paper read. May not that ques- 
tion be asked without offence ? In what way, more emphatic, 
could I have declared that the gentlemen were not afraid. 'King 
Agrippa, believest thou the prophets V asked the great Apostle ; 
and instantly added, ' I know that thou believest.' Let the 
gentleman consult his primer in rhetoric ; aye, and his primer in 
courtesy too. 

" The gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Blair,) has ac- 
cused the citizens of the North, of building their factories on 
the groans, and tears, and blood of the oppressed and miserable 
Africans. That is more, Sir, than I will sit and hear. The 
gentleman knows nothing about.the people of the North. I ad- 
mit, that before the slave-trade was made piracy, some Ameri- 
can ship-owners were partially engaged in it ; and it might 
have been, even after the trade became illegal, some might 
have been concerned it. If the facts were so, let them settle 
that question, with God and their country. But that the peo- 
ple of New-England built their factories on the groans, and 
tears, and blood of the poor Africans, is as false, as that the 
gentleman from South Carolina now lives on the groans, and 
tears, and blood of the vast number of slaves over whom he 
holds control. I said that it had pleased God to relieve the 
people of the North, of that grievous curse which still lay upon 



140 MEMOIR O I 

their Southern brethren ; and in saying so, I but quoted the 
words of one of the best and wisest of the statesmen of the 
South. Reproach my brethren for an evil which has fallen 
upon them in the apportionment of Providence 1 I would as 
soon reproach a man for having lost an eye, or an arm, or having 
a deformed limb, as for having been born in a country where he 
received by inheritance the control of the labor of slaves. In 
every movement the South has made to relieve themselves from 
the pressure of this heavy burden, I have ever felt the deepest 
sympathy. No man personally interested in the horrible catas- 
trophe of the last summer, felt more acutely on that calamitous 
occasion — and yet I am to be reproached with having insulted 
the South, merely because a certain petition was asked to be read, 
that all might act understanding^ in permitting it to be put out 
of the House, in a manner that should vindicate the courtesy of 
the country. Stir up an excitement ! Injure the South ! Sir, 
there is not a person there to whom I would not extend the 
hand of amity ; but there are those there in regard to whom the 
most fervent aspiration of the most sympathetic heart is too 
feeble. Did I desire the day to come, when cannon were to be 
their orators, and powder and ball their arguments 1 How can 
any man so blaspheme all the feelings of brotherhood ! thus 
rend asunder all the bonds, which ought to bind us together, not 
merely as men, but as Americans ? Could the gentleman have 
so understood me? Of all the most mortifying occurrences 
which have happened to me in this Hall, this is the most so. 
When I have labored, with but little of strength and of life hang- 
ing about me, to be perfectly understood by the gentlemen of 
the South, and when I would be the first man to bring the 
waters of the ocean upon the earliest flame which the demon 
of discord might kindle to destroy the peace of a flourishing and 
happy land ; then to be thus openly accused of reproaching the 
South for the slavery which exists there ! I have said it was a 
curse — I shall ever consider it so, and will go as far as any living 
man, in conformity with the wishes of the South, to relieve 
them from it ; but never would I take a step against their will. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 141 

" As to the threatening language which the gentleman has 
used; let him understand, that it will have no influence with me. 
I did not come from a race which is to be put down by hard 
words and savage looks. I may be drawn by a twine thread ; 
but never will be driven by the club of Hercules." ' 

1 The force of many of Mr. Burges's allusions are lost, unless the character 
or appearance of his opponents are known. Mr. Blair was a gentleman more 
than six feet high, and of a frame in proportion to his heighth. While Mr. 
Burges was speaking, Mr. Blair, among other members, approached near 
enough to catch his deepest intonations; and when he concluded, by saying that 
he would not be driven by the club of Hercules, it was one of those happy 
applications, which even Mr. Blair could not resist. He immediately came to 
Mr. Burges's seat; and thus terminated the controversy, by a cordial inter- 
change of friendly feelings. 



CHAPTER XL 

Trial of Governor Houston before the House of Representatives, for an assault 
on Mr. Stanberry. — Speech of Mr. Burges. 

A Resolution was before the House, in March, 1832, by 
which it was moved to refer a complaint against the Collector 
of Wiscassett, to the Secretary of the Treasury, that, if found 
guilty, he might be removed from office. Mr. Stanberry of 
Ohio, opposed the Resolution, contending that if the allegations 
were found to be true, he would not remove the Collector from 
office; "For," said he, "was the late Secretary of War removed, 
in consequence of his attempt fraudulently to give to Governor 
Houston the contract for Indian rations F The whole speech, 
as corrected and prepared by Mr. Stanberry, was published in 
one of the newspapers on the second of April. The next morn- 
ing he received a note from Governor Houston, inquiring " if 
his name had been used in debate ; and if so, whether his words 
had been correctly quoted." Mr. Stanberry and his friends, 
believed this note was written, not for explanation, but for pur- 
poses of hostility. By their advice, he was provided with 
weapons of defence against the meditated violence. 

On the evening of the thirteenth of April, as Mr. Stanberry 
was walking to visit a friend, he was met by Governor Houston, 
who came suddenly out of the shadow of the buildings, where 
he had stood unseen, and accosted Mr. Stanberry, in courteous 
tones ; at the same instant, with a heavy hickory bludgeon, 
struck him a blow on the temple, so violent as to deprive him 
of the power of defence ; Houston continued to multiply his 
blows, until Mr. Stanberry ceased to struggle, and was almost 
insensible. Thus was a citizen of the United States, a Repre- 
sentative of the American People, within a few yards of the 



TRISTAM B URGES. 



143 



National Capitol, beaten, wounded, and left almost dead, merely 
for words spoken in debate. 

By a Resolution adopted by a large majority of the House, 
Governor Houston was arrested, and brought to trial for the 
offence. During the term of twenty-four days, the House was 
almost exclusively employed in the trial ; in hearing objections 
to his arrest, or motions for delay ; in the examination of his 
witnesses, or in listening to his advocate, or to himself, in his 
defence. The excitement in Congress and in every section of 
the Union was manifested in the strongest terms. Violence had 
been committed against our institutions — the blow which had 
been struck, was aimed at the whole American People ; and 
wherever the story should be related, there would the friends of 
freedom lament the outrage. 

The trial of Houston, elicited a discussion in which the most 
prominent members of the House participated. Mr. Binges, 
was particularly solicited to close the controversy, on the part of 
Mr. Stanberry, and in favor of the great principles of a republi- 
can government — freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. 
His effort on this occasion, was distinguished by a boldness of 
expression, which subjected him to a menace from some friend 
of Houston. Mr. B urges, however, was not intimidated ; for 
he felt that the rights and dignity of the People had been 
assailed, in the person of a Representative ; and that it was his 
imperative duty to speak of the protection claimed by members, 
and the punishment due to such an outrage upon their privileges. 
The theory invented by the respondent in this case, was, that 
the House is, for its defence, and, therefore, for the uninterrupted 
exercise of all its legislative power, entirely dependant on the 
Judiciary department of the Government. " Sir," observed Mr. 
Burges, " we know what our highest judicial tribunal is now — 
the most perfect human transcript of that to which the patriarch 
alluded, when he said, c Will not the Judge of all the earth do 
right? What may the tribunals of that department come to 
be, in future time? Ambition — other than judicial, political 
ambition — as she walks up and down in the land, may, at some 
future time, step over the threshold of our sanctuary of justice. 



144 MEMOIR OF 

What judge will be able to preserve the purity of independence 
when he has once commenced a traffic of ambition, and is la- 
boring to barter the judiciary ermine for the purple of executive 
power ? Avarice, Sir, debasing and inglorious avarice, may, as 
wealth aud luxury advance in our country, reach his unclean 
hand to the fountain, and corrupt the streams of justice. If 
neither of these shall ever operate on that department, still the 
limitary doctrines, so rife in some portions of our country, may 
reach the bench, and send this House away from that forum, 
unprotected. 

" Let us, however, admit the Court to be, and I trust it always 
will be, independent, incorruptible, and, if you please, not doubt- 
ful of its power to punish in a case like this. Say that the 
Court condemns, and sentences to imprisonment, and that, too, 
for some high-handed outrage on the freedom of legislation in 
this House. Let it be that the Court, in such a case, directs the 
marshall to take the prisoner to the penitentiary. May not, at 
that moment, a pardon from the President be placed in his 
hand? — a pardon, whereby the delinquent shall be let loose 
again in the street, and the judicial and legislative power be 
prostrated under the foot of the Executive 1 

" Sir, the moment this House shall place its independence in 
the safe-keeping of any court, and thereby at the will of any 
President — let him be patriotic, like Titus, or rash and bloody 
as Domitian ; should lie, as Cromwell was, be the crafty and 
cruel tyrant, or, like Alfred, the devoted father of his country, 
no matter — the very instant we give up to him the power to 
protect this House, and each one of all its members, we shall 
surrender the independence of the Legislative to the Executive 
department of this Government ; and from that moment we are 
traitors to the people of these United States, who have made us 
the trustees for their own use and benefit, of their power, their 
rights, and their liberties." 

And again — u Will the people endure this attempt, made by 
the respondent, and sustained by his learned advocate, to abridge 
the freedom of the press, by violence ; when, thirty years ago, 
they would not endure a law, because it might, in its remole 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



145 



consequences, have produced that, evil 1 Shall we, by our de- 
cision on this great question, justify the efforts of that respondent, 
in his attempt to place around this Hall, such a collection of 
armed violence, as may not only silence all freedom of discussion 
in this House, but likewise so abridge all freedom of the press 
that the people may not be able, hereafter, to read any part of 
what we may, under this discipline of outrage, dare to speak? 
No, Sir ; I trust we shall not. I do hope there is yet among us 
more patriotism, more just and fearless regard for the laws, more 
noble self-devotion and genuine independence. 

" Sir, when the Star Chambers and the Bastiles of the Old 
World are demolished ; we are importing their dilapidated re- 
cords, for Congressional precedents ; and their long disused, and 
now rusted chains, wherewithal to form more becoming wreaths 
to enwrap the lovely limbs of our ■ mountain nymph, sweet 
Liberty.' The spirit of free discussion is at large in Europe. 
England is, at this very time, struggling to remodel and rebuild 
her parliamentary system. France has drenched the streets of 
her own beloved Paris in blood, to secure ' freedom of the press.' 
The type, Sir, the type must pioneer the sword, in the march of 
freedom. The voice of eloquence may startle the oppressed 

I from his slumber of ages — it may shake the tyrant on his throne 
of a hundred descents, if they may be found within the compass 
of its mighty volume ; but the more efficient powers of the 
press may spread out the printed roll of human rights before 

I every human eye. Dare we, Sir, dare we snatch that printed 
roll from the hand of the American people ; and that, too, when 
it is fraught with our own doings touching their concernments, 
entrusted by them to our management, but to their use, and for 
their benefit?' 



i I 



" The great question here, is, not between us and the respon- 
dent, as mere men, as citizens ; but it, is a question between the 
Constitution and the club ; between the political laws of the 
land and the law of the bludgeon. We have now in the na- 
tion, some number of able men, denominated constitutional 
lawyers. Let this defence prevail, and our country may soon 



146 MEMOIR OF 

be adorned by a new description of civilians, very justly to 
be called club lawyers. If the Constitution were once well 
overthrown, and such a school fairly established, it would con- 
fer more degrees, and grant more diplomas, annually — or at 
least once in four years — than any other college in the Union. 

" Of this new school of civilians, the respondent is, by his 
advocate, marked out, and designated as the illustrious head 
and founder. The deed of daring done by him, and the suc- 
cessful defence of it, or, if the defence fail, his expected suffering 
in this great cause of freedom of the bludgeon, will be, as it is 
said, more than fame enough for one man ; and extending and 
expanding like a blaze of sunbeams, from the principal to his 
advocate, cover him also with glory. That advocate, in his 
defence of that principal, has manifested an ambition as suppli- 
ant as it is lofty, and exclaimed to him, though not in song, 

' Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, 
Pursue thy triumph, and partake thy gale ?' 

"Sir, although it may be unpleasant to disappoint such lofty 
aspirations, yet, if this House be not found wanting in the dis- 
charge of its high obligations to the American people, this 
copartnership, and this voyage of glory, will end as such specu- 
lations and such adventures usually terminate, with little profit, 
and less honor, to the concern. The American people will sus- 
tain this House in the full exercise of all those powers granted 
to it, not only to supervise and direct the duty of all its mem- 
bers, but also for their protection in the discharge of their high 
and important trust. 

" It is useless to shut our eyes against the light ; facts do 
exist, and will exist, whether we will not, or do not, see them. 
A system of hostility has been commenced, and is now carried 
on with persevering animosity, against two of the great depart- 
ments of this Government. A war is waged on this House, by 
all those who have already shared, or are looking for a share, 
in Executive patronage. Officers, in all departments, seem to 
regard themselves as subsidiaries ; they look on this House with 
distrust; because it is a part of its constitutional duty to examine 
the official conduct and compensation of all those, who have 



TRISTAM B URGES. 147 

been, no matter for what purpose, pushed into the public service. 
It seems to be the settled belief of all those men, that the tenure 
of their offices depends on their ability to degrade, and debase 
the character of this House of Representatives in the estimation 
of the people. The same spirit has turned the same bitter hos- 
tility towards the other branch of the Legislative Department. 
Men of ruthless ambition, of debased moral character, and of 
political creeds ever subservient to their own private interests, 
hold the executive power of the Senate in utter abhorrence. 
Such men have a shuddering apprehension upon them, that 
they can never reach high offices, either at home or abroad, 
until the Chief Magistrate can be relieved from the troublesome 
advice of his constitutional council. That advice has excluded 
some of them, from the dearest objects of their ambition ; and 
now, loud and earnest indeed are their recommendations to the 
people to amend the Constitution ; cut down the senatorial 
term to two years, take from that House all power of advice and 
consent, either in the making of treaties or the appointments of 
officers, and reduce the Senate to a mere negative on the enact- 

| ments of the House. The war-cry is also raised, if not by the 

' same, by a kindred spirit, against the Supreme Court. That 
tribunal has, until within two or three years, been looked up to 

\ by men of all parties, and its decisions respected in every State. 

1 Now, Sir, calumny and malevolence have filled their nlouths 
with bitter revilings, against this last great sanctuary of the 

' Constitution. Its decisions have come in conflict with the ar- 
rogance of power, with debased and corrupting avarice, and with 

I the dearer attributes of licentious oppression. By whom, Sir, is 
this exterminating war waged, and pushed on against the con- 

j stituticnal powers of the Legislative, and Judicial Departments 

I of the Government ? By those who look to be sharers in the 

I spoils, the plunder of the nation, and depend entirely on Presi- 

1 dential power for their success. 

" Sir, the question, under consideration, originates in those 
belligerent movements ; and is truly an attack upon the free 
exercise of those powers given by the people, under the Consti- 
tution, to this House, for the purpose of examining, bringing to 



148 



M EMUI R O F 



light, and punishing, official delinquency. A collector was 
accused of fraud and exaction, made on one of his subordinate 
officers, for the purpose of enabling the administration to influ- 
ence and control elections. Such inquiries must be silenced. 
The respondent committed this outrage for that purpose ; and, 
unless this House has the power to protect its members, by 
placing a salutary restraint upon such armed violence, they can 
no longer discharge this or any other part of their duties. 

"Notwithstanding this power does, of necessity, belong to the 
power of compulsory attendance ; yet the respondent and his 
counsel boldly deny that any such power can be found in the 
Constitution. The learned advocate becomes quite classical, 
and, in the ardor of speech, quotes Latin upon us — 'imde deriva- 
tor,'' he exclaims ; as if he had not sound English enough to 
express this sublime interrogatory. This power, Sir, is derived 
from the Constitution, and would be found there, by every prin- 
ciple of fair construction, if none of the words already quoted 
and considered had ever been placed in that instrument. The 
Legislature of the nation is, by the Constitution, the political 
law of the land, formed into two great political bodies, indepen- 
dent of each other, and of all other political bodies. The law- 
making power is, and must be, the supreme power ; it is the 
embodied sovereignty of the people, in relation to all things, 
committed in trust to that power, by the Constitution. If the 
people themselves, either individually or as a nation, have the 
power of self-defence, then must their sovereignty, their power, 
united under the Constitution, also have the power of self- 
defence. 

" Sir, the principle of self-defence runs throughout the whole 
animated world, and is a law to < man, beast, bird, fish, insect, 
what no eye can see.' Look with your glass at the living atoms 
which in myriads, people the light ; each one is armed, and by 
the little wars of self-defence, preserves his own existence. He 
fights his brief battle, reproduces himself, and dies in the same 
hour when, and in the bosom of the same bright sunbeam 
where, he was born. The little ichneumon, deified in Egypt for 
his successful wars against the crocodile, not only defends him- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 149 

sell against that ferocious enemy of so many living things, but, 
by courage and stratagem, he leaps into the open jaws of his 
powerful adversary, wins his way to his very vitals, gnaws 
asunder the cords of life, and then, boring a passage for himself 
through the side of his conquered enemy, leaves the monster 
dead or dying on the shore of the Nile. The leviathan of the 
ocean, which wars and feeds on all the families of the seas, is 
assailed and subdued by one of the lesser fishes, a diminutive 
adversary, named from the sword which he wears ; endowed 
with the instinctive valor and skill of self defence, he plunges, 
when pursued, and, rising swiftly, and with a deadly aim, under 
the defenceless body of his enemy, avenges and secures himself. 
You have seen those little birds which build their nests, and sing 
in the trees, near every farmstead, as you travel any part of our 
country. They are always on their defence ; never waiting to 
gather themselves into brigades, each one darts singly on the 
coming hawk, and drives the marauder from his little neigh- 
borhood. 

" ' Its power to guard itself each creature feels.' One animal 
lifts his heel, and spurns his adversary ; another tosses him with 
his horns ; a third dashes at him with his armed head ; and a 
fourth raises a paw, and strikes with no purpose of a second 
blow. The principle of maternity is a part of the principle of 
self-defence. How often does a cruel boy hardly escape with 
his eyes, when he climbs a tree to plunder the nest of a robin 1 
What do you see in the farm-yard more valiant than the hen in 
defence of her brood ] The shepherd will tell you that the sheep 
itself, in defence of her lamb, is no less brave than the dog 
trained and trusted to guard the flock. What man will do, or 
dare, more in defence of himself than a mother will do, or dare, 
in defence of her child ] The right of self-defence is so incident- 
al, and so perfectly a law of nature, that every effort made by 
any creature, in pursuance of this law, is cheered and encour- 
aged by a feeling and expression of approbation in the mind, or 
by the voice of every beholder of it. 

" A knowledge of the right which every man has to defend 
his own life, has not been communicated to us by any human 



150 MEMOIR OF 

teachings ; but was given to us at our creation, among those 
primitive instincts which were wrought into the very fabric of 
our existence, by the hand of the Creator himself. The right 
of self-defence depends on no law made by man : for, unless it 
were a law of nature, and brought into existence with life itself, 
there must have been a time when, because no such law had 
been enacted by man, he could have had no such right ; and 
to have defended his own life would have been a crime against 
his own nature. Now, by the common consent of all mankind, 
and without any law enacted for that purpose, every man is, by 
every human tribunal, justified in using so much violence in de- 
fence of his own life as will preserve himself, and prevent the 
assailant from attempting further aggression. Nay, Sir, this 
great law of our nature creates and places an obligation on every 
man to defend that life bestowed on him by his Creator ; and if, 
when assailed, he does not do this by all the means in his power, 
he consents to his own murder, and is guilty of a crime, in 
the forum of conscience, equal, at least, in its enormity, to that 
of suicide itself. 

" Although this great principle of self-defence is a law of our 
nature, and never has been questioned, so far as we have any 
knowledge, by any human tribunal ; yet the Creator himself 
did, in the great constitution by him given to man for his gov- 
ernment, and written in the volume of inspiration, utterly pro- 
hibit the destruction of human life. ' Whoso sheddeth man's 
blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Here is, in this consti- 
tution, not only no warrant for taking life in self-defence, but 
here is, to the very letter, a prohibition and a punishment af- 
fixed to the deed. How shall we interpret, how reconcile these 
two great laws, enacted by the same all-wise Legislator ? By 
looking to the purpose of their institution. They were both es- 
tablished for the preservation of human life. The law which 
prohibited killing, was intended to prevent that violence which 
might destroy life ; and the law of self-defence was designed to 
resist that violence which had not been thereby prevented, and 
which, if not so resisted, would destroy life. So were these two 
laws expounded and reconciled, in after time, by the Creator 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



151 



himself ; where, by his own ordinance, the killing, which had 
been done in self-defence, was justified ; and that killing only, 
which had been done with malice prepense, was followed by the 
punishment of death. 

" Sir, may not human institutions, made by the best wisdom 
of man, for human preservation, receive the light of illustration 
from institutions established for the same beneficent purpose, by 
the ordinance of the Deity himself? 'The Judge of all the 
Earth' has expounded the laws of the Eternal, so that his pro- 
hibition against 6 shedding man's blood,' does aid, not abrogate, 
his own paramount law of self-preservation, but, in effect, places 
a weapon in each man's hands, to shed that blood in his own 
defence. Who then will, or can deny, to a whole people, united 
and embodied in the persons of their representatives, under 
that great institution, their political law — that constitution which 
makes them a nation, and forms their representatives into a 
sovereignty — who, I say, dares deny to that sovereignty the 
same rights of self-defence which appertain, not only to every 
individual of that nation, but also to every animated being 
throughout the universe 1 Sir, the Constitution which formed 
the Congress of these United States, and endowed that Congress 
with the power to make laws, did, by that very act, and without 
more words, invest each House of that Congress with all the 

powers of self-defence and self-preservation." 

******** 

" What is the theory of our Constitution ? First, a partition 
of power : there shall be a legislative, judicial, and executive. 
Second, independence of each department on both the others. 
The legislative shall not depend on the judicial or executive ; 
the judicial shall not depend on the legislative or executive ; 
nor shall the executive depencTon the legislative or judicial. 
Without the first of these, a partition of power, any Government 
must be a despotism. 

" A momentary glance at the best, and once the most distin- 
guished parts of the earth, will demonstrate this great truth. 
Egypt is at this time renowned for that fertility, which relieved 
the famine of the ancient world. This region still retains greater 



152 MEMO I R OI 

monuments of human power than have ever heen found in an\ 
other country ; and the page of history does still bring to our 
knowledge those visitations of Omnipotence which once distin- 
guished * the land of Egypt.' How is this land of teeming fer- 
tility, of monumental wonders, and literary reminiscences, how 
is it governed? By an unpartitioned power; by a nominal 
Pacha, but, in truth, an independent monarch, who holds in his 
own hands the power to make, to adjudicate, and to execute the 
laws. It may suit him to have the forms of legislation and 
judicature ; but his will, like the dragon rod of the Hebrew, 
swallows up the will of all others, nor leaves even a magician 
to * do so' by his enchantments. Where is power more resist- 
less, or subjection more silent and submissive ? The same prin- 
ciple of undivided power has placed on the Bosphorus, hi the 
Byzantium of the ancient Greeks, the Constantinople of more 
modern Greek and Roman empire, wbence Justinian promulga- 
ted a system of laws, which, like other splendid ruins of anti- 
quity, has furnished the models, and much of the materials, for 
the jurisprudence of modern times. This principle of sole 
and unparticipated power, has located in that most delightful 
region of the earth, the throne of a tyranny so absolute, that 
Turkish power is the by-word, the proverb, for despotism, 
throughout the civilized world. In Asia, the cradle of the 
human race, and the theatre of human redemption — in Asia, 
where the traveller seems to hear the voice of long disregarded 
inspiration from every mountain, and to see the footstep of 
departed Deity on every rock — in this region, once the home 
of more than human glories, this blighting principle of unpar- 
titioned power has placed every nation under the iron sceptre of 
sole despotism. 

" By the partition of power, despotism will not be prevented, 
unless each department of the great trust be made and continued 
independent of the others. Power was divided in ancient impe- 
rial Rome. There was a senate and people, who might enact 
laws ; praetors were appointed with sufficient jurisdiction, and 
might decide causes ; and there was a supreme executive mag- 
istrate, a Tiberius, who could, if he pleased, execute those laws, 



TRIST AM BURGES. 153 

and, when it suited him to do so, carry into effect any praetorian 
decision. The forms of the Constitution remained ; but it was 
lifeless — the mere carcass of ancient institution. The Executive 
Department had, by aid of the Roman legions, arrogated, and 
brought into its own grasp, all power; and left the Praetors, the 
Senate, the people, entirely dependant on the Emperor for law 
and for life. Ancient France had all the forms of the several 
departments of power — a king, parliament, and chancellors. 
What despotism was ever more exclusive and bloody than that 
of the eleventh Louis ] By his orders every form of human 
death had been inflicted, until he had tired of the spectacle ; 
and then he compelled his minions to invent machines for 
inflicting pain and preserving life. One of them was finally 
shut up in a cage of his own construction, and so contrived that 
the tenant could neither sit down, lie down, nor stand up, but 
where life was, in a manner, shut in with him, not permitted to 
escape ; and he for ten years preserved as a kind of living spasm, 
a mere breathing death. England, in the reign of Henry the 
Eighth, had a nominal partition of power — a king, a parlia- 
ment, and a judiciary department. Had liberty any abode in 
the nation ? Was any department of the Government independ- 
ent of the Executive — the King 1 Who escaped death when 
he was the accuser ? Either a counsellor, or a wife, when 
weary of the wisdom of one, or the beauty of the other, his court 
or his parliament condemned them to the block ; and the heads- 
man, while he satisfied the cruelty of a tyrant, enabled the 
voluptuary to indulge appetites more loathsome and beastly. 
He was facetious, too, as well as bloody-minded. It is said that, 
on one occasion, he ordered the Speaker of the House of Com- 
mons to be called before him, because some bill for supplies had 
not quite speedily enough passed through that House. Laying 
his hand on the head of the trembling man, as he was kneeling 
at the foot of the throne, ( Mr. Speaker,' said he, ' pass that bill 
before to-morrow noon, or you will not find this head where it is 
now.' Sir, these Governments were all debased and cruel des- 
potisms — not because there was no formal partition of power, but 
because the several departments of it were all dependant on the 
Executive. 



154 I MEMOIR OF 

"Sir, it was the intention of the American people to shun the 
political errors of other ages, and other nations. The light of 
history shone on their path. They knew that supreme power, 
placed in the hands of one man alone, could create no govern- 
ment other than despotism. Nor were they unadvised that no 
partition of power could preserve liberty, unless the several 
departments of it were each independent of the others. It was 
their intention, when they formed their Constitution, to establish 
such a partition of power, and so to render each department of it 
independent of the others, as that the evils of all other Govern- 
ments should be avoided, and their own liberties thereby secured 
and preserved." 

Of free discussion he says — " Liberty itself, eloquence and 
freedom of speech, are cotemporaneous fires, and brighten and 
blaze, or languish and go out together. Athenian liberty was 
for years protracted by that free discussion which was sustained 
and continued in Athens. Freedom was prolonged by elo- 
quence. Liberty paused and lingered, that she might listen to 
the divine intonations of her voice. Free discussion, the elo- 
quence of one man, rolled back the tide of Macedonian power, 
and long preserved his country from the overwhelming deluge. 
Liberty, in some one of the Grecian States, survived Philip the 
tyrant, who seems to have made it one great purpose of his life 
to conquer and enslave them. Although that conquest was 
achieved by his son ; yet he, imbued as he was with Grecian 
philosophy and literature, and no less a scholar and gentleman 
than a warrior and hero, preserved the illustrious statesman, 
who had labored by his eloquence in the free discussion of 
Athens, to preserve the freedom of his own country. When the 
Asiatic and European conquests of Alexander were partitioned 
among his generals, Greece and Macedon fell to the allotment 
of Anti pater ; and that rash, illiterate, bloody-handed barbarian, 
could not feel secure on his throne, unless by the death of that 
illustrious man, who, by his counsels and his voice, had so long 
resisted the march of despotism. 

"When the light of free discussion had, throughout all the 
Grecian cities, been extinguished in the blood of those states- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 155 

men by whose eloquence it had been sustained, young Tully, 
breathing the spirit of Roman liberty on the expiring embers, 
relumed and transmitted, from the banks of the Illissus to those 
of the Tyber, this glorious light of freedom. This mighty mas- 
ter of the forum, by his free discussions, both from the rostrum 
and in the senate-house, gave new vigor, and a longer dura- 
tion of existence, to the liberty of his country. Who, more 
than Marcus Tullius Cicero, was loved and cherished by the 
friends of that country ] who more feared and hated by trai- 
tors and tyrants 1 

" Cataline, a patrician, noble and commanding in appearance, 
wicked in purpose, and profligate in habits ; master of all ele- 
gant accomplishments, but degraded in mind by vices the most 
vulgar and loathsome ; no man so skilled to allure and deprave 
youth ; suppliant in deception, but audacious in betraying men 
of all conditions — this Cataline, this conspirator, was, by the 
force of free discussion, by the powerful and commanding elo- 
quence of Tully, driven from his secret treasons against the 
Roman commonwealth, into open war and final ruin. 

" Freedom of speech, Roman eloquence, and Roman liberty, 
expired together, when, under the proscription of the second 
triumvirate, the hired bravo of Mark Antony placed in the lap of 
one of his profligate minions, the head and the hands of Tully, 
the statesman, the orator, the illustrious father of his country. 
After amusing herself, some hours, by plunging her bodkin 
through that tongue which had so long delighted the senate and 
the rostrum, and made Antony himself tremble in the midst of 
his legions, she ordered that head and those hands, the trophies 
of a savage despotism, to be set up in the forum. 

' Her last good man, dejected Rome ador'd ; 

Wept for her patriot slain, and curs'd the tyrant's sword.' 

" The languages of such ancient nations as most cherished 
free discussion, survived the political existence of those nations ; 
and the most finished debates and speeches of their most distin- 
guished orators and statesmen, preserved by the labors of the 
pen, have, brought through the dark ages, been delivered down 
to modern times ; and this achievement was done by a preserv- 



156 



M E M O I R O F 



ing care, and a solicitude, not less pious and persevering than 
that of him, the illustrious refuge of the old world, who em- 
barked, and brought over the flood, the survivors of the deluge, 
to re-people the earth, and renovate the human race. 

" English statesmen and orators, in the free discussions of the 
English Parliament, have been formed on those illustrious 
models of Greek and Roman policy and eloquence. Multiplied 
by the teeming labors of the press, the works of the master and 
the disciple have come to our hands ; and the eloquence of 
Chatham, of Burke, of Fox, and of the younger Pitt, reaches us, 
not in the feeble and evanescent voice of tradition, but pre- 
served and placed before the eye, on the more imperishable page. 
Neither these great originals, nor their improved transcripts, 
have been lost to our country. The American political school 
of free discussion, has enriched the nation with some distin- 
guished scholars ; and Dexter, and Morris, and Pinckney, will 
not soon be forgotten by our country, or by the literary world. 

" Sir, those models of ancient and modern policy and elo- 
quence, formed in the great school of free discussion, both in 
earlier and later times, are in the hands of thousands of youth, 
who are now in all parts of our country forming themselves for 
the public service. This Hall is the bright goal of their gener- 
ous, patriotic, and glorious ambition. Sir, they look hither, with 
a feeling not unlike that devotion felt by the pilgrim, as he 
looks towards some venerated shrine. Do not, I implore you, do 
not by your decision this day, abolish the rights of liberty conse- 
crated in this place. Extinguish not those fires on her altar, 
which should here, be eternal. Suffer not the rude hand of this 
more than Vandal violence, to demolish ' from turret to founda- 
tion stone,' this last sanctuary of Freedom. 

" I call on the whole House — to you, the majority of this 
House, I now more especially appeal. You know me as no 
partizan of the distinguished individual, who now holds the 
ruling power of this nation. No vote of mine aided in placing 
him in the Executive chair. Could party stratagem ever be 
mingled by me with great questions of national interest and 
honor ; if the instruments of operation, might in any case, be 



TRI8TAM BURGE S. 157 

consecrated by the purposes which put them in motion, I would 
have labored to induce you to send the respondent away, unre- 
buked, from this hall ; that you might thereby, have fixed on 
the character of this administration, a coloring of infamy more 
enduring, on the page of history, than that leprosy on the human 
form, which the stream of time through a thousand descents, 
could never wash out of the human blood. 

"Preserve then, I conjure you, preserve the Constitution; 
preserve the independence of the Legislature ; the honor, the 
character, the fame, of the Executive. Preserve the freedom of 
speech, the freedom of the press. This is the first outrage on 
all — all that is dear — all that is glorious : say, for you only can 
say, it shall be the last." 



CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Burges submits Resolutions on the Tariff. — Speaks on Mr. Verplanck's 
Bill on the Tariff. — Extracts from his Speech. 

During the Session of 1833, when the Bill submitted by Mr. 
Verplanck upon the Tariff System was under consideration, Mr. 
Burges submitted a set of Resolutions upon the whole subject 
of the protective policy. In the preamble to these Resolutions, 
the complaints on the part of those opposed to the System were 
recited — to wit ; that the power of laying duties on foreign 
imports, had been tyrannically and unequally exercised by the 
majority in Congress ; that thereby the plantation States were 
oppressed, and compelled to pay more than their proportion of 
duties ; that the same States had also been compelled to pay 
a large amount of duties upon the exportation of their staple 
products; and that the money so exacted, by the usurped pow- 
ers of Congress, had been lavished in bounties to manufacturers 
in the North, and especially in New-England ; in expenditures 
on works intended exclusively for the benefit of the labor and cap- 
ital of those States; that the effect of such representations was, 
to lead the people of the plantation States into error concern- 
ing the disposition of the public money, in bounties and public 
works; and as it was now proposed to abandon the protective 
policy of 1787, to lay duties on imports solely for purposes of reve- 
nue and so as to equalize the burden of impost and taxation on 
all the States. Such an adjustment could not be made without 
a knowledge of the quantities and kind of foreign goods, con- 
sumed in each State, and required by the trade, habits, and 
wants of the people. This information was desirable for the Na- 
tional Legislature, and for all interests and all sections of the 
United States. The Resolution proposed the appointment of 



TRISTAM BURGES. 159 

a Committee of one member from each State, to inquire, 
respecting ; 

1st — The amount of money paid by the people of each State, 
on foreign goods imported, on its domestic productions exported, 
on all tonnage of vessels owned therein ; the number of seamen 
to each State, the amount of money paid to the Marine Hospi- 
tal Fund ; the amount of postage paid ; — also on distilled 
spirits ; the amount received by each State, for drawbacks and 
debentures ; the number of vessels employed in the fisheries, 
bounties on manufactures, and of what kinds ; the amount ex- 
pended on public works ; for transporting the mail, and for 
supporting the military establishments therein. 

2d — The amount of exports from each State ; designating 
articles of foreign and domestic production, the amount of duty 
payable thereon, the population of each State, and the average 
amount payable by each person — the amount and value of the 
productions, with the market price of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, 
bread-stuffs, provisions, salt, distilled spirits, silk, wool, fish, oil, 
lumber, manufactures, of what and each kind, the current 
prices of such articles in England and France, the cost and 
charges, and the amount of duties and bounties, on importation, 
or exportation, in those countries. 

This Committee, it was proposed, should be appointed by 
ballot ; and that it should consist of one from each State ; and 
be clothed with power to send for persons and papers, and to 
report in detail the above particulars in relation to all the States. 
From this abstract of the Resolution, it will be observed, that 
it reached the very foundation of the protective policy ; and met 
the question upon the broad ground of facts and figures, and al- 
together discarded sophistry, speculation, and theory. It, how- 
ever, was not acted upon by the House ; because the Bill after- 
wards introduced by Mr. Clay, superseded further action. It is 
on file among the public documents ; and there it will remain, 
illustrative of the practical wisdom and enlarged views of its 
author. 

At this Session, Mr. Burges delivered in Committee of the 
Whole House, another speech upon the Tariff Question. The 



160 MEMOIR OF 

doctrines maintained by him embrace the main principles be- 
longing to this exciting and interesting topic. 

The memorable Statute of July 4th, 1789, was the beginning 
of the protecting policy ; and a series of measures, founded upon 
that statute, have placed our country, in her present condition 
of prosperity and independence. In this speech, Mr. B urges 
considered the Bill under consideration, as aiming a decisive 
blow at that policy ; because, in its practical operations, it would 
bring a train of disasters and adversity upon the nation. 

Legislative power, he contended, was given to Congress by 
the people, for three great purposes — 

1st — To pay the debts of the United States ; 2d — To provide 
for the common defence ; 3d — To promote the general wel- 
fare ; and that no specified power was granted, but for these 
three great purposes ; and to the same intent, the power to 
make all laws proper or necessary to the exercise of those powers, 
was also given. 

To pay the debts of the United States, Congress could lay and 
collect direct taxes, and so they could lay and collect taxes indi- 
rectly, by impost, duties, and excise. To provide for the common 
defence, they could raise money in all these three ways. For 
the same purpose, they could support armies, maintain a navy, 
call out the militia, declare war, and make reprisals. To pro- 
mote the general welfare, all other express powers were given — 
the power of exclusive legislation in certain cases, of organizing 
the Judiciary, encouraging arts and sciences, establishing the 
mails, forming rules of naturalization, and bankruptcy, fixing a 
standard of weights and measures ; and finally, the regulation 
of commerce, by imposts, duties, and excise, limitations, or pro- 
hibitions ; and by all laws necessary and proper for that purpose. 
These powers are all inseparable from the general welfare ; 
and they can be exercised to no valuable purpose, except by 
Congress. The power therefore to promote the general welfare, 
the people have given to Congress ; because the States, could not 
direct it, as States, in its proper sphere and influence. He fur- 
ther argued, that one of the most essential powers ever exercised 
by Government, is no where expressly given to Congress by the 



T HIST A M BURGE S. 



161 



Constitution — that is, to raise money for the support of Govern- 
ment : yet that no one will deny, that it belongs to Congress. 
If one of the States, can promote the welfare of its own citizens, 
so Congress can promote the general welfare : because the peo- 
ple of all the States, have delegated that power to the United 
States ; and upon that, its exercise depends. If each State 
could so regulate its foreign intercourse, as to encourage and 
protect its own industry, then as the States have divested them- 
selves of that power, and given it to Congress, they are bound 
to exercise it, for the same great purpose. Before the adoption 
of the Constitution, no State could prevent the exercise of this 
power by another State ; neither can it since the Constitution, 
to the same extent, in the same manner, and for the same 
purposes. 

It is, he contended, a grave question, whether a State can in 
fact have, or maintain any interest under the Constitution, 
inconsistent with the general welfare. Such an interest would 
be a common nuisance, and like the slave trade, it would be 
abated, by the force of popular opinion. Money is raised for 
the support of Government, because it promotes the general 
welfare. How then, can it be called upon to promote any inter- 
est, inconsistent with that welfare ? Or how can that Govern- 
ment be supported, when to maintain that interest, it sacrifices 
that welfare. 

The constitutional argument concluded, Mr. Burges referred 
to the protecting statutes of 1789, and 1816, and to the encour- 
agement extended by them to the cotton-growing interest. 
That interest, he contended, in its youthful progress, stretched 
out its feeble arms towards the nation, implored its protection, 
and received it, as an affectionate child receives the love and so- 
licitude of a parent. Why then is the nation like the good old 
Lear, c whose frank heart gave all,' now left by that South to 
feel, ( how sharper than a serpent's tooth,' is filial ingratitude. 

The protecting policy was intended to increase the amount of 
domestic production. It is said, however, that the spirit of inde- 
pendence which it inculcates, is unsocial in its nature, and hostile 
i to the power of America and England. Mutual dependence 

u 



162 



MEMOIR OF 



would unite us, by a golden chain of commerce. " Sir, I would 
not unite the American People, by any tie of dependence, to any 
other nation on earth ; nor for all the countless millions of 
commercial wealth, would I, even by a golden chain, bind this 
youthful and vigorous nation to the foot of the British throne. 
The very birds of the air, would teach us a lesson of more 
wisdom : 

' Would the young goldfinch quit his native briar, 
For the bright cage o'er-arched with golden wire V " 

It is one of the great objects of the Protecting System to 
relieve the American nation from a dependence on foreign 
countries. It was predicted in the beginning, that it would call 
into employment all the labor of the country. " Accordingly, it 
was to employ all our labor, elicit all our skill, perfect all our 
machinery, and bring into use every agent of production, the 
power of the earth, the water, of wind, and of steam, that our 
great system was begun, and has been carried on towards per- 
fection. Must we, who have already harnessed and broke 
these rude agents of nature into the work; must we turn them 
loose again, in all their wildness ; because men in other parts of 
the country, choose to stand idle on the banks of their native 
streams, and refuse to start these their powerful teams, in the 
course of labor and competition with us? God forbid, that 
industry should be controlled in her labors by indolence ; or that 
this nation should unyoke these our gigantic powers of produc- 
tion; and naked-handed, enter into competition with the labors of 
the world, aided as they are, by every agent of nature, instructed 
by every process of science, and made skilful by every improve- 
ment of art. 

" Sir, in this age of the world, the wealth of nations depends 
on their labor. There was a time, nay, for many ages, plunder 
was the great resource of nations. The first kingdom established 
on earth, was sustained by the conquest and pillage of many 
nations ; and ' great Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean Em- 
pire,' was built and adorned by the spoils of all Asia. The 
exorbitant wealth of one nation, thus obtained, gave an exam- 
ple to the world, and awakened the ambition, and sharpened the 



TRIS T A M BURGES. 163 

avarice of others ; until the Assyrian was conquered and plun- 
dered by the Persian ; the Persian by the Macedonian ; and he 
at last, devoured by the Roman power. The wolf who nursed 
their founder, seems to have given a hunger for prey, insatiable 
to the whole nation. Perhaps there was not a house, nor a 
temple, between the Atlantic and the Euphrates, which was 
not plundered by some one of that nation of marauders. 

" Sir, the tide of ages, century after century, had rolled over 
the last fragment of Roman power — the light of science dawned 
on the world, and a knowledge of letters was disseminated by 
the press, before men seemed to believe that our Creator had, in 
fact, announced to the first of our race, that, * by the sweat of 
his face, man should eat his bread all the days of his life.' It 
may be difficult to enumerate ail the different causes which 
changed the character of the nations of Europe. No one cause 
has done so much in changing that character from war and 
plunder, as that pure, meek, and quiet philosophy, which has 
taught all men to ' do unto others as they would that others 
should do unto them.' Rebuked by this divine precept, men 
have sheathed the sword, and put their hands to the plough. 
They have mined the earth, not for the instruments of war, 
but for the machines of labor. If now, war break out, it is not 
for plunder ; cities are not given up to pillage ; captives are not 
sold for slaves ; territories do not change owners ; men return 
again with eagerness to the habits of peace, and do not look to 
the labors of the camp, but to those of the plough, the loom, and 
the sail, for emolument and wealth. No vestige of ancient war 
among independent Christian nations now remains, unless it be 
in those fragments of slavery, which perhaps neither sound poli- 
cy, nor justice, nor piety itself can tear away from the texture of 
that society where they are found. If labor, therefore, and not 
the sword, be the great staff on which nations lean for support 
and wealth, then should it be their great policy to call their 
whole labor into employment, improve its skill to the utmost 
point of perfection, aid that skill by every kind of machinery 
which may save the consumption of labor, and support the 
operations of that machinery by the power of all those agents 



164 



M E M O I It UF 



placed within our reach, by him who lias committed the destiny 
of every people on earlh to their own keeping. 

" Wealth is power ; and the defence of every nation depends 
on its wealth. The wealth of a nation is its labor, its skill, its 
machinery, its abundant control of all the great agents of nature 
employed in production. A large store of goods laid up for 
many years, was the wealth of a fool ; but such a store is the 
poverty of a nation. A great annual consumption, alone, can 
ensure an augmented annual re-production. The labor of a 
nation can no otherwise be sustained, than by the consumption 
of its products. The products of human labor in food and 
clothing, like the fruits of the earth, are annual ; and God, in 
his wisdom, has adjusted human wants to its powers of produc- 
tion. Like the bread from Heaven, that the Giver might not 
be forgotten, the dew of every night produced the crop, and the 
labors of every day gathered in the harvest. 

" What but a mighty phalanx of labor, an almost boundless 
power of consumption and re-production, has defended and now 
sustains England in all the athletic vigor of the most glorious 
days of that extraordinary nation 1 Men who speculate on the 
duration of nations, seem to assign to them the several periods 
of human life; youth, manhood, old age, and final dissolution. 
They draw their conclusions from the nations of antiquity, and 
apply them to those of modern times. They forget that those 
ancient nations were like beasts of prey, which find an enemy 
in every living thing; and must be, sooner or later, circumvented 
by stratagem, or overpowered and destroyed by force. Produc- 
ing nothing by their own labor, and consuming all which, by 
violence, they could plunder from the labors of others, their 
whole existence was a burden to the human race, and they 
were finally destroyed as a common nuisance to mankind. 

" Not so with England ; she is a glorious example of the self- 
subsisting, the all -producing, and all-defending powers of labor. 
With a valor purely Spartan, she builds no walls against the 
wars of the world. Her little island, accessible at a thousand 
points, and often within gun-shot of the embattled fleets of her 
enemies, has not, for more than seven hundred years, been stept 



T K 1STAM B U It G E S. 



165 



upon by a hostile foot. What has enabled her to do this 1 
Her untiring labor ; her unrivalled skill ; her unequalled ma- 
chinery ; her exhaustless capital, and unbounded control over 
all the agents of production. Her goods, wares, and merchan- 
dize, are in all the markets of the world ; and wherever she 
wants a tongue to speak in her cause, or a sword to be drawn in 
her quarrel, if such things can be found in those markets, she 
can command them. 

" This manufacturing nation did, in the last war of Europe, 
exhibit a spectacle never before seen by the world. She stood 
alone, against the embattled continent ; and at last, with her 
own spindle and distaff, demolished a despotism, an iron pyra- 
mid of power, built on a base of all Europe. 

" Sir, can such a nation ever grow old, and cease ' to be 
mighty in power f Can any other nation escape the influence 
of that power, and stand independent of its controlling arm? 
No : unless by a countervailing system of policy, that other 
nation, like the first Congress of the United States, calls into 
employment all its own labor ; perfects the skill of that labor ; 
and places in its hands all, the aids of the artificial and physical 
agents of destruction." 

Mr. Burges next discusses the great countervailing system 
founded on the statute of 1789, and the laws passed by 
Congress in favor of the protective policy, up to July, 1832. 
He then enters into minute and enlarged details as to the 
particular effects of that system upon particular interests — the 
mechanic, the manufacturing, the commercial, the navigating, 
the agricultural interests : that all have been reared by that 
policy, and thereby have peopled our land with labor and skill, 
and agents of production. 

Legislation, in aid of all these interests, would have been less 
efficacious had not Congress exercised its control over the 
national medium of exchange. Accordingly, the founders of 
our great system of policy knew, that Congress, to regulate the 
value of money, and render it a circulating medium, must 
institute some establishment, by which the issue of bank bills 
might be controlled, and made convertible into money ; and 



166 MEMOIR U V 

farther, so to adjust the supply of those bills, by the amount 
issued, to the demand for currency in the market, that no 
abundance or scarcity of that currency should injuriously affect 
any of the important branches of national industry. Congress, 
therefore, early established the Bank of the United States, as a 
branch of the protecting system. 

Provisions for the defence of the United States against foreign 
invasion are another part of this extensive policy. Fortifications 
and the navy belong to it. The common defence is thus so 
closely linked with the general welfare, that the overthrow of 
the one involves the other. 

It appears, therefore, that Congress has, for about forty years, 
exercised the power given by the Constitution ' to promote the 
general welfare.' It seems, however, by the new system under 
consideration, that Government is to be a scheme of burdens, 
without any corresponding benefit to the people. " Is not this 
Bill a mere scheme of taxation ] It provides for the wants of 
Government, but makes no provision for the wants of the 
people. Without inquiry, without knowledge of the amount of 
means, in the hands of any man, or the amount of payment to 
be made by any man or any State in this Union, we sit here, 
and, without any examination or survey of property first had, 
we are about to enact a great doomsday volume of taxation, 
which shall, in its exactions, visit every free laboring man in the 
nation, in his food, in his clothing, in his habitation, and in the 
instruments of his labor. Nor is this all. Not only it visits his 
labor with a blighting curse ; withers and consumes its pro- 
ductive energies ; but also places him on the degraded level, 
and in competition with the paupers of Europe, and the slaves 
of South Carolina. 

" Sir, you dare not enact and pass this Bill into a law. Never 
did the fathers of those freemen, even in their struggle for 
independence, permit a slave to lift his hand in aid of their battle, 
until he had first been purified and consecrated to the holy 
service, by the sacrament of emancipation. We shall never 
degrade the blood of our fathers. 

" Is the product made by South Carolina slavery reduced in 
price? Let the master diminish the task of the slave. Spare 



TRISTAM BURGES. 167 

the slave^ Reduce the quantity of cotton, pushed to surplusage 
on the consumption of the world. Give labor now and then a 
holiday. Send a less quantity to market ; and bring home as 
much, or more money, for it. 

" Employ the slave in some other vocation, if not of profit, it 
may be of ornament, and adorn your country. Labor for 
something which cannot be swallowed. Raise monuments, or 
after generations may never know that you have existed. Let 
the little tyrants of these days, like some of the greater ones of 
ancient times, build pyramids of bricks ; and no longer toil to 
scale the highest heavens, on bales of cotton. 

"Sir, disguise this question as you will, it is, after all, a 
crusade against free white labor ; first preached on this floor 
and now put in the form of war, by the owners of slaves. It is 
the maker of cotton, against the grower of wool : the mere 
tiller of the ground, against the keeper of sheep ; and because 
the first brother of our race did, in such a strife, succeed in 
committing the oldest fratricide on record, the movers of this 
controversy seem satisfied to earn a like malediction, if they 
can but succeed in performing a kindred achievement. 

"Sir, I repeat it, this controversy is a war against the free 
white labor of the country ; a war levied by the owners of 
slaves. How often have j^ou been told on this floor, first in the 
voice of complaint, but now in the tones of insolent menace, that 
the free laborers of the North could earn fifty cents a day, while 
the slaves of South Carolina could not earn more than twelve 
and a half cents ? How often has the same voice told us, that 
manufacturing capital used by this free labor, cleared a profit of 
twenty per cent, per annum ; while slaves and land, the cotton 
raising capital of the South, would not, in any year, come up to 
six ? This base, inglorious question is now agitating our coun- 
try. We are told that our great system of national policy 
encourages the labors of the free, and renders capital in their 
hands highly profitable ; but the same system discourages the 
labor of slaves, and renders them, and the capital employed with 
them, in growing cotton, rice, and tobacco, not profitless, but 
merely less profitable to the owners. These men aver that the 



1 68 m emoir o r 

same system of laws is encouragement to the free, but discour- 
agement to the slave labor of the country ; and that all the 
great interests of all the free labor, in the United States, must 
be, nay, shall be, sacrificed, not to preserve, but to render more 
profitable, the capital vested in Southern slaves. Dare these 
men place such an issue before the country, in all its naked, 
base, and odious deformity? Dare they tell to the world of 
Christian nations the true state of this question ? Would not 
those nations who have universally excluded slavery from their 
civil policy, would they not hear with a shout of indignation, 
that one of these States had taken up arms against the Union, 
and sworn to destroy that Union, for the glorious purpose of ren- 
dering their negro slaves more valuable, by rendering the labor 
of those slaves more profitable 1 They have not dared to do it. 
They have put a mask on this base-born controversy of avarice. 
Under this mask, this Shylock question of interest, of mere 
money, of so many dollars and cents, has been changed in 
appearance ; and is now, to the deceived eye of the nation, a 
question of State rights — State sovereignty — freedom — chivalry 
— nullification. Egregious masquerade of valor and patriotism ! 
Brave cavaliers — for how much money — for how many pounds 
of flesh — will you sell all these painted, pasteboard glories ? 
For the base and grovelling provisions of this Bill ; for their 
negro cloths at five per cent ; their own coats at twenty ; and 
cotton, calico or plain, both for themselves and slaves, at the 
same rate of impost. 

" Does not this strip the question of all its paintings 1 Yes, 
Sir, they plainly tell us that the great cotton and tobacco inter- 
est of Southern slavery cannot thrive, unless the greater interest 
of Northern freedom in manufactures and agriculture shall be 
destroyed. Are these two interests indeed hostile to each 
other ; and cannot the same system of laws give to each of 
them, the same encouragement and protection now, which was 
so liberally bestowed on both by those laws in 1816 ? No one 
ever dreamed of this hostility of interests, until within the last 
eight years. Until then, our great system established to promote 
the general welfare, did equally advance the individual and 






TRISTAM BUR G E S. 



169 



particular interests of all. If then, by some strange perversity of 
purpose, or of accident, any particular interest has, since that 
time sprung up in our country, hostile in its nature to the general 
welfare, can the owners of that interest call upon the nation to 
cultivate this their deleterious plant, and to promote its growth, 
demand that every other interest which has hitherto flourished 
in our land, shall he extirpated and destroyed ? Who would 
pluck up fields of wheat, that he might thereby encourage a 
more vigorous growth of hemlock'? Does not the less always 
give place to the more useful plant 1 Let then these politicians 
beware how they undertake to prove to the American People, 
that their production of rice, cotton, and tobacco, by the labor of 
slaves, is hostile to that general welfare, which has been for more 
than forty years established and promoted by our great system 
of encouragement and protection. Admit that it were so. Do 
the owners of slaves believe that the system of encouragement 
is to be abolished, and more than seven hundred thousand free 
white people, now employed in mechanic and manufacturing 
labor, and more than nine hundred thousand employed in 
agricultural labor, are to be thrown out of employment, and 
reduced to poverty, merely to render slave labor, employed in 
growing cotton, rice and tobacco, somewhat more profitable? 
Sir, you may as soon c tear this steadfast earth from her axis ;' 
roll the moon into our orbit, and compel this globe, to spin 
round that, as a mere satellite." 

Mr. B urges proceeds to a minute detail of the comparative 
value of slave-labor and free-labor ; the large profit derived from 
capital invested in lands and slaves m the Southern States, 
compared with the profit derived from agriculture and manufac- 
tures in the Northern States. He believes the Bill aims a blow 
at protection itself, and that it will not stop at the overthrow of 
mechanical and manufacturing industry. The fisheries, the 
ship-building trade, the internal navigation interest, the foreign 
navigation and commerce, the navy, internal improvements, as 
these all belong to the protective policy, so they are to be de- 
stroyed by a competition with the exhaustless capital and labor 
of foreign nations. " Is the defence of our country," says he, 



170 



MEMOIR OF 



" a part of our great system of protection, devised for the security 
of the labor and capital of all the people ? then does this Bill, 
«wfi-protective in its very principles, remove that defence. — 
Destroy those interests, which have called together in cities, 
towns, villages, hamlets, near your waterfalls, bays and harbors, 
and covered the agricultural districts around them, with a dense 
population, and these people, like the oppressed Hebrews, while 
gathering straw, will be, in pursuit of labor and bread, scattered 
abroad throughout all the land. Where will be your militia, 
once in the neighborhood of youv fortifications, and ready to 
man them on the approach of the enemy] Gone, Sir, dispersed ; 
and, perhaps, on your other frontier, conflicting with the savages 
of the western prairies. If your forts are defended, it must be 
by a standing army. At all events, the troops of your present 
military establishment must be recalled from those stations, in 
the South, where they have been located, to protect the master 
and his family from the insurrectionary spirit of his slaves. 

"To this protection, though hardly to be found in the 
Constitution, the free people of the North have never objected. 
They have felt a deep and anxious interest in your safety. I 
know your Southern chivalry scoffs at all this ; and holds our 
sympathy in utter derision. Be assured that I am not ignorant 
of the contempt you feel, and the scorn you express, when any 
New-England man happens to speak of you, on this floor, in 
terms of fraternity. For myself, I claim brotherhood with no 
man ; unless, b}^ blood or affinity, I stand in that relation with 
him. Be assured that I shall never affront any of your lofty 
feelings, by any expression of any relationship with any of you, 
other than that of citizenship and humanity. We are Ameri- 
cans ; and we are men. There is no alienage between us. — 
The freemen of the North, and I as one of them, claim it as a 
right, to desire the safety of all men. We will travel far, and 
labor hard, to achieve that safety for all the American people. 
If the safety of Southern planters cannot be secured without aid 
from the troops of the United States, that aid will not, by us, be 
refused, for their protection. 

" It must, nevertheless, not be forgotten by them, t hat if we 
are at last to protect them and their families, by armed force, 



TRISTAM B URGES. 171 

they must not feel themselves at liberty, to withdraw the 
protection of the laws from us and our labors. Under these 
conditions, the arm of our strength will always be near to you, 
and lifted up for your defence. Do not expect more from the 
working men of the North, than can be performed by man. 
Dare you repeal the laws enacted for vour protection 1 Will 
you break up the instruments of your labor and livelihood? 
Shall our free working men, with their wives and children, be 
turned, by you, into the world, naked, and without shelter or 
food 1 Do you expect their sympathy will be alive to the cry of 
your distress, when their children cry to them for that bread 
which you have plucked from their mouths ] When your wives 
and daughters fly from that servile brutality which has cloven 
down their husbands and brothers in their defence; can the 
shrieks of their agony reach the ears of those whom you have 
left out to the winter storms, in houseless nakedness and famine 1 
The men whom you have maddened with the bitterness of that 
misery which you have heaped upon them, who, but for that, 
would die for your safety, will laugh when ruin visits your 
abodes ; and shout, and clap their hands, when the whirlwind 
of retribution sweeps through your land. 

"Sir, can it be expected that the free people of the North 
will be annually taxed, to purchase a protection for you, when 
you will not permit a law, which costs you nothing, to remain 
unrepealed in your statute-book ; because that law gives pro- 
tection to the labor and the instruments of industry, by which 
they feed and clothe themselves and families 1 How do you 
hope to be secured in the possession of that labor, which gives 
you wealth, and enjoyment, and political power'? How but by 
the provisions of that Constitution which makes us a nation, 
and protects your interests, by the whole power of our national 
arms] In no other Christian nation are such rights, as you 
enjoy in this country, made a part of the national polity, and 
secured by the provisions of the Constitution. The spirit of 
emancipation is abroad in the earth. What is now doing in 
England, the most free and powerful nation on earth ? Ay, 
Sir, in England, to which, as it is said, some States in the South 



172 



MEMOIR O F 



already look for aid against our own country ] What question, 
as a test of political orthodoxy, is now put to a candidate, before 
he can be elected to the House of Commons 2 Are you for 
universal emancipation ? What a test ! Who would have 
dreamed of it twenty years ago ? And yet more than four hun- 
dred and fifty Englishmen have been elected to Parliament 
under that solemn pledge. How long will West-India colonial 
slavery continue to exist, under the legislation of such a Parlia- 
ment? Let South Carolina, or any, or all the slave-holding 
States of the South, separate from the other States in this Union, 
and take, or not take, shelter under the arm of any European 
nation ; and how long do you believe that, or the other nations 
of that continent, would permit slavery to exist, among their 
republican allies 1 Sir, it cannot be disguised, nor should it be 
left untold, in this great question, that the very existence of that 
labor in the South, for a more profitable condition of which those 
States are now struggling to destroy all the free labor of this 
country, does in fact depend on the protecting power and aims 
of that free labor. Take from them the shelter of the power and 
arms of the American people, whose common welfare they are 
striving to destroy ; leave them with their slaves to themselves^ 
for security and protection, and how would their labor differ, in 
ten years, from that of the West-Indies or Mexico ? 

" Remember, Sir, man lives not by the voluntary bestowments 
of man. One Being only, in the universe, gives all, and always, 
and receives nothing. Men live by mutual aids. Something 
for something, is the great law of reciprocity and exchange, 
throughout the world. Those who expect to receive, must be 
ready to bestow. Do the South expect a protection of their 
labor from the North, then let them be ready to bestow what 

they cannot want, and not receive, without utter ruin." 

******** 

"What have you clone, Sir, Chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means ? What have you done for New-England ? 
New-England — the landing-place of the Pilgrims ; the cradle 
of American Independence ; New-England — the blood of whose 
sons has fertilized so many Southern, and consecrated so many 



T R I S T AM BURGES. 173 

Northern fields. What, I demand of you, have you done, in'all 
your wise provisions, for New-England ] You have left unde- 
molished — what could you else? — her rivers and rocks, her 
mountains, and winter storms ; and oh, how courteous ! you 
have not taken away from her, the curse of exterior influence, 
and interior treachery. You may triumph, you cannot subdue ; 
New-England labor, like New-England valor, can never be 
subdued. 

" You of the South, have essayed every scheme and shift of 
policy. Your embargo lashed our ships to the wharves, until 
their shrouds fell from the masts. Your non-intercourse and 
war, locked up in warehouses, the staples of our commerce, 
which had been purchased and long paid for to you ; and even 
New-Orleans was defended by the cotton of New-England. By 
your Tariff of 1816, you called on New-England, to sacrifice 
her rich East-India commerce, to what then you denominated a 
much greater interest — the national independence and the com- 
mon welfare. 

" Oh no — place New-England in a region of rock, without 
earth or water, our labor shall drill the solid stone, and like the 
staff of the Prophet, let out the gushing stream. Our persever- 
ance shall beat the flint into small dust, and cover the whole 
surface with soil. The dews, and the rain, and the sunshine of 
Heaven, the only creatures of God left by you, in amity with us, 
shall give to our new earth, moisture and fertility ; and time, 
and labor, and God's blessing shall cover the whole region with 
verdure." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Speech of Mr. Burges on the Tariff. — Nullification in South Carolina. — The 
Revenue Bill. — The President's Proclamation. — Mr. Clay, and his Compro- 
mise Bill. — Mr. Burges's Address to his constituents. — He is re-elected to 
Congress. — His opinions concerning Slavery. 

As the all-absorbing question concerning the Tariff Laws 
was again introduced, Mr. Burges once more spoke on the 
Resolutions before the House. In his Speech, which embraces 
the leading principles of the American System, the amount of 
taxes paid by the protection and anti-protection States respect- 
ively, are discussed ; and some of the effects of the abolition of 
protection explained, both in regard to revenue and national 
industry. 

With this subject, (the protection of American Industry,) Mr. 
Burges is perhaps as conversant as any statesman in our 
country. He has thoroughly studied its principles, and its 
details — he feels that not Rhode-Island alone is interested, but 
that the prosperity and happiness of all the States depend upon 
it — that it is one of our most valuable national resources, and 
should be cherished with peculiar solicitude. Hence, whenever 
that System has been opposed, in Congress or elsewhere, he 
has ever stood forth, as its valiant and zealous champion ; de- 
picting in eloquent terms, the blessings which it diffuses over 
our extended country. It is by labor in such a cause, that the 
name of a citizen is associated with wisdom and patriotism. 

The dangers which threatened our Union at that period, arc 
fresh in the recollection of all. The State of South Carolina, 
by assemblages of her people, by violent harangues on the pari 
of influential politicians, by the message of her Governor, and 
the enactment of laws conflicting with the Constitution of the 
United States, had assumed a fearful and perilous attitude. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 175 

The consideration of Congress was invited to the subject, in the 
Message of President Jackson, and subsequently by his Pro- 
clamation ; an instrument which was replete with maxims of 
good government. In accordance with that Proclamation, a 
Bill was reported to the Senate by Mr. Webster, for enforcing 
l lie laws made for collection of the revenue. When that Bill 
came down from the Senate, and was reported to the House, 
and brought up for debate, the session had almost expired ; and 
it was determined by its friends, to allow opposition as much 
time as possible on their part to discuss it ; but, for want of 
time, its friends were not to indulge in a protracted debate. Mr. 
Bell, of Tennessee, Chairman of the Committee who reported 
the Bill from the Senate, and now Speaker of the House, a gen- 
tleman of ability, with some of his associates of the Committee, 
it was expected, would be almost the only speakers. The meas- 
ure was too important for any objection to be left unanswered. 
It was supposed Mr. McDuffie would use his vigorous weapons 
of attack, and it was desirable that he should be answered, be- 
fore the debate was closed. Mr. Burges was requested by Mr. 
Grundy, a confidential friend of President Jackson, to perform 
this service ; which he had intended to do, from the commence- 
ment of the discussion. When Mr. McDuffie had finished, 
Mr. Burges rose to reply ; but Mr. Wayne, of Georgia, had 
already risen, and was announced as entitled to the floor. He 
concluded at nine o'clock at night. He again rose, but Mr. 
Daniel, of Kentucky, being nearer the Speaker, obtained the 
floor ; but he was evidently speaking against time, and was 
determined that no one should reply to him or to Mr. McDuffie, 
until the next day. He did not close until two o'clock at night ; 
when it was resolved, on consultation, that the debate should 
proceed no further ; but that as soon as he closed, Mr. Bell 
should call the previous question. The day after, the Bill was 
read a third time, and passed. 1 

1 Whatever credit President Jackson may have acquired by his Proclama- 
tion, he seems now determined to destroy it. It would be singular for almost 
any other man to shape a course so entirely opposed to the sentiments of that 
Proclamation, as he has done. 



176 MEMOIR OF 

Near the close of the session, Mr. Clay introduced a Bill, to 
alter and amend the Tariff Laws. That Bill contained provis- 
ions designed expressly to meet the tone of popular feeling at 
the South, and to assuage the elements which were then 
threatening a dissolution of our Union. With his peculiar tact 
and unrivalled eloquence, he implored the Senate to pass the 
Bill ; and thus to avert the storm, which, if it does come, must 
sweep away the last hopes of freedom. It passed ; and was 
sent down to the House. There, as in the Senate, it met with 
opposition, hut was finally enacted. 1 

Mr. Burges was again re-elected to Congress in August, 
1833, by a large majority over his immediate competitor. He 
was the only candidate elected among several competitors. In 
addressing his constituents, prior to the day of election, he gave 
a conclusive, and admirable illustration of the doctrines of nulli- 
fication; both in their theory and practice. 

"Nullification is the theory, the science, of that political sys- 
tem, of which treason and open rebellion are the art and 
practice. It claims for each and every State in the Union, the 
right and power to abolish, make utterly void, and take away 
the very existence of any, or every law of the United States, 
within the limits of any State which may choose to exercise 
such right and power. Every department of our National Gov- 
ernment, and every feature of our national character, depend for 
their existence, on some law or laws, enacted under the Consti- 
tution, by the United States. The foul sorceress of Nullification 
may point her lean and withered finger, at each one of them ; 
and they at once melt down and vanish from existence. She 

T This bill, in all its provisions, was not satisfactory to the friends of the 
Tariff. Mr. Clay himself was not favorable to all its parts. He knew, how- 
ever, that the whole framework of the American System was endangered; 
and that it was better to introduce some conciliatory clauses, rather than to 
see it all perish. The experience of every day is developing the wisdom of 
Mr. Clay's policy. 

The representatives from New-England strongly opposed that Bill. Mr. 
Burges made a vehement speech against it, and incurred the censure of many 
sincere friends. We may confidently assert, that it is the only one made by 
him in the Congress of the United .States which has caused them regret- * 



TRISTAM BURGES. 177 

can seal up every Post-Office ; arrest every mail ; pull down 
every Custom-House ; break up your Treasury; pluck your 
judges from the bench ; strike your venerable President from 
his chair ; lock up the halls of national legislation ; demolish 
your fortresses ; disband your army ; pull down your flag, the 
stars and stripes of our Union, and scatter your navy to all the 
winds of heaven ; consume the existence, the very form of our 
whole nation ; and of all this Union, this empire of laws, this 
glorious achievement of republican freedom, leave nothing but 
a wilderness of anarchy, where so many States, like so many 
wild beasts, with no other law but force, and no other restraint 
but fear, shall hereafter mutually prey upon and devour each 
other. 

"Everyman should examine his own principles and opinions, 
in relation to the Constitution and Government of our country ; 
and be fully satisfied, that he is not corrupted by any false, vain, 
and treasonable heresies. Our first great principle is, or should 
be, that the Constitution has made the American People, one 
people, a nation in all their relations to other nations ; and in 
all the relations of the several States, to each other ; that this 
nation is known to other nations as such, and by them is called 
by the name of the United States ; that, being a nation, they 
are, and must be, independent of all others ; and sovereign in 
all parts of the United States territory, in all things granted to 
them by the people under the Constitution ; and that each one 
of the several States holds, and may exercise all the powers of 
States, not denied to them under the Constitution by the same 
people. The Constitution, and the laws made under it, in pur- 
suance of the powers granted by it, are as the people of the 
United States have declared, ordained, and established, the 
supreme law of the land throughout the whole territory of the 
United States ; whether the same be unappropriated lands, or 
organized territory, or States established under their own consti- 
tutions; and any law made in any such State or territory, must 
be conformable to the Constitution, and to the laws so made by 
the United States under it, or they are utterly void, and cannot 
be carried into execution by any law court in our country. 

w 



178 MEMOIR OF 

" We learn, on the contrary by the creed of Nullification, that 
each State in the Union, is a perfectly independent, sovereign 
community ; but that the United States are a mere agency of 
the several States, without sovereignty ; and that any State 
may, within its own territory, call in question, and establish any 
law made by this agency. This, we are told may be done, 
because these States are sovereign, and the Constitution, being 
a compact between sovereignties all equal, there can be no 
court or tribunal established between them, with power to 
decide when the Constitution has been violated ; and therefore, 
each State has a right to decide for herself, like any other inde- 
pendent nation. 

" The United States is a nation, sovereign and independent ; 
but I deny that either of the States is a nation, or sovereign, or 
independent. What is a nation, a sovereignty? It is such a 
community as is governed by no law, enacted by any power, 
located out of its own territory 1 Cannot the United States 
make such laws and execute them in each of the States 1 Who 
established the mail, the post-offices, and post-roads in every 
State ? Who built your custom-houses, and made every law 
in every State, for collecting the revenue of the whole nation 1 
Who made all the laws for coining that money, on which you 
see the eagle, the arms of the nation, and the form of liberty, the 
object of all our institutions'? Is each State a nation, and does 
each of these nations permit a power, not located within its own 
territory, to enact laws for controlling its transmission of intelli- 
gence ; the collection of its revenue ; and the establishment of 
its coin and currency 1 Which one of the States contends, that 
she has a right to establish post-offices and post-roads ; to 
levy taxes by duties and imposts ; or to coin money, or to regu- 
late the value thereof, and of foreign coins ? Can any com- 
munity be a nation, a sovereignty, without the right to exercise 
these powers 1 and yet not even Nullifiers contend, that any one 
of the States has, or can exercise them. 

" There is a great family of communites on the earth, gov- 
erned by a known and well established code of regulations, 
called the law of nations. Some of these communities are, in 



TR1ST AM B URGES. 179 

Western Europe, called Portugal, Spain, Fiance, Belgium, 
Holland, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden ; in North America, 
the United States of America, the United Mexican States ; in 
South America, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, the Argentine 
Republic, and the Empire of Brazil. How are these nations 
known to each other ; and what powers and qualities must 
each possess, before it could be received as a nation, into this 
great community 1 Each one, for that purpose, must, be a 
sovereignty, governed by its own laws ; and be independent, for 
their enactment of all others. The Canadas are not nations, 
because they are dependant on England for a part of their laws. 
Ireland and Scotland are not nations, but integral parts of Great 
Britain ; because they depend on her for a part of their laws. 
Texas is not a nation, but one of the Mexican States, and de- 
pendant on that Republic for a part of its laws. In like manner, 
Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, or any other State in our Union, are 
not nations, but parts of our great Republic, called States ; and 
they are not nations, because they are not sovereignties, but are 
dependant on the United States, for laws in many respects ; 
such as laws to regulate their mails, their coin, their impost, 
(heir internal State commerce, and commerce with foreign 
nations. It is not pretended that any State in the Union can 
make any law, touching any one of these great subjects. How 
then can any such State, when so dependant on another com- 
munity, be a nation, an independent sovereignty? 

" If we consider the manner in which nations hold intercourse 
with each other, we shall find that no State in this Union is a 
nation, a sovereignty; or that any foreign nation could so regard 
any such State. Nations hold intercourse by public Min- 
isters, or Ambassadors. Would England or France, receive an 
ambassador from Massachusetts or Connecticut ? Would the 
United States receive such a functionary from Texas'? Why 
not 1 Because ambassadors are the representatives of nations, 
sovereign and independent, to other like sovereign and indepen- 
dent nations. For the same reason consuls and commercial 
agents from those States would not be received by any foreign 
nation. How has it happened that no nation on earth has ever 



180 



MEMOllt OF 



thought of sending an ambassador, or consul, or commercial 
agent to the sovereign and independent nation of South Caro- 
lina ? Simply because South Carolina is not a nation, is not 
an independent, is not a sovereignty. 

"Nations contract more intimate relations with each other, 
by treaties, sometimes for purposes of commerce, and at others, 
for defence. No foreign nation has ever proposed to form any 
treaty with any State in this Union. This has happened, not 
because the Constitution, forbids such States, to make such 
treaties ; but because all foreign communities know, that no one 
of these States is, or can be, under our Constitution, such an 
independent and sovereign community, as can be admitted as a 
nation, into the great family of nations, and form treaties of 
alliance, amity, or commerce. 

" Nations conduct commercial intercourse on the high seas 
and elsewhere, by national ships, designated by national names, 
covered by a national flag, authenticated by registers, clear- 
ances, rolls of equipage ; and navigated by mariners such as the 
laws of nations may require, or by regulations, such as treaties 
among them have established. It is this national character of 
ships, and the national manner of their navigation, which con- 
ducts the ships of all civilized nations over the ocean, through 
every sea, and into all ports. Send out a ship, without these 
characteristics of nationality ; without a name, a clearance, or 
a flag ; and how would she be viewed by foreign nations 1 As 
a pirate. Has any State in this Union, ever sent out a ship, 
under its own authority ? Why not ? Because no such State 
is sovereign, no such State is a nation ; and no foreign nation 
would receive into its ports, or regard on the high seas, any such 
ship so sent out by any such State, any otherwise than as a 
pirate. Foreign nations know us by our flag, our ships, our 
commerce, our consuls, public ministers, and treaties ; and by 
all these, they know us as citizens of the United States ; as the 
people of a nation, and not merely as the inhabitants of any 
one State of this Union. No matter how large, how wealthy, 
how populous any State may be; the inhabitants of it, are in the 
account, and in the eyes of all nations, citizens of the United 



TRISTAM BURGES. 181 

Stales, Americans ; a title as much more imposing than that 
which any one State could bestow on her citizens, as the entire 
argent field of our national flag, furrowed with so many stripes, 
and adorned by a whole constellation, is more glorious and 
gladdening in the eyes of mariners, than the ensign of a single 
State, though ornamented by the palmetto leaf, and enlightened 
by a solitary star. 

" If any State in this Union, encouraged by the hostile exam- 
ple of South Carolina, should raise an army, fit out a navy, 
grant letters of marque, and declare war against — no matter 
what foreign people ; would they be regarded as a nation, and 
treated as such, by the nations of the earth 1 Would their war 
be a lawful war, their ships national ships ; or would it be 
piratical, and their ships be adjudged to be mere corsairs ; and all 
found on board, as pirates, the enemies, not of a single nation 
only, but of all mankind ? This would not be done, because, 
by our Constitution, no State can declare war, raise armies or 
navies, or grant letters of marque and reprisal ; but because no 
State is a nation, a sovereign community, admitted into the fam- 
ily of nations, and capable of sending and receiving ambassadors, 
forming treaties, declaring war, and making peace. Such an act 
would be, it is true, a violation of the Constitution ; and in 
relation to the American People, the United States, open rebel- 
lion ; but, in relation to other nations, it would be neither more 
nor less than piracy. 

" There can be but one sovereignty, one supreme power, 
touching the same things, in the same territory. If each State 
be the supreme power, in all things in its own territory, then the 
United States is no sovereignty, and has no supreme power, any 
where, in any thing. If the United States be the supreme 
power within the whole territory thereof, touching all things, 
granted to them by the people under the Constitution, then is 
the United States a sovereignty, and the people thereof a na- 
tion ; but of the several States, the holding all the power not 
thus granted, over the life, liberty, and property, of all the peo- 
ple within their several territories; yet not one of them is a 
sovereignty, not one of them is a nation. 



182 



MEMOIR OF 



"The theory of Nullification depends on the fact that the 
United States is not a sovereignty, a nation ; but that each one 
of the several States is a sovereignty, a nation ; and because 
all sovereignties are equal, no tribunal can decide between 
them, when they have been wronged by an unconstitutional 
law ; and each, therefore, must, and can decide for itself, 
by nullifying such law. If the United States, on the con- 
trary, be a nation, it must be endowed with sovereign power, 
in the legislative, judicial, and executive departments of that 
power, in all things granted by the Constitution ; and because 
the States are not sovereignties, not nations, their claim, as 
sovereigns, as nations, to adjudicate and nullify Congressional 
laws because unconstitutional, is at an end ; and all such 
questions must arise, not between sovereignties, as the nullifiers 
contend they do arise, but between the United States and the 
citizens of the United States; and do, therefore, fall within the 
jurisdiction of the judicial power granted by the people under 
the Constitution to the Supreme Court, or such other courts as 
may be established by Congress." 

It was supposed by many, that Mr. Burges had endeavored 
to irritate the feelings of the South, on the question of Slavery. 
But he has always, as has been before remarked, labored to 
conciliate those feelings, by disclosing what he believed to be 
the prevailing sentiments and principles of the North, concern- 
ing slavery. " I have told them," says he, " that the votaries 
of universal emancipation are few in number, not more numer- 
ous in the North than in the South. They are considered as 
aiming at things impossible, if not pernicious; and from the 
great mass of public opinion, they receive as much countenance 
or encouragement in the South as they do in the North. The 
great and highly respectable body of The Friends, I have told 
them, who had done so much in Europe and America, for 
suppressing the slave trade, would, so soon as it might be done, 
with justice to masters, and with benefit to slaves, give freedom 
to the whole human race. Those men devoted to the great 
principles of Christianity, ' Peace on earth, and good will to 
man,' would never tarnish their good purposes by effecting 



TRISTAM B URGES. 183 

them by any evil means ; nor ever dissolve the relation between 
master and slave, unless they could do it by the mutual consent 
of both. They have been further told by me, in open debate, 
that the great body of Northern people were, from constitutional 
principles, and from political feelings, utterly opposed to all in- 
terference between the master and the slave. They believed 
that the laws of their country have forbidden to them the right, 
and they felt, that their own interests did not give to them the 
inclination, to interfere in the great race of emulation, among 
the several States, for wealth, power, and political influence. 
Tbe people of the North have felt that slavery was a burthen 
upon their fellows citizens of the South, which impeded them in 
their course : and that no principle of charity commanded, but 
every principle of worldly wisdom forbade them, to touch this 
burthen, with so much as one of their fingers, until those who 
carried it, became fairly w T eary with the load, and called on them 
sincerely for aid in laying it down." 

Of African Colonization he has likewise spoken in the freest 
and most decided terms of approbation. But he has not joined 
the Society for that purpose ; because he believed he might be 
more useful to the great object, without doing so ; and 
because he will not give occasion to Southern men to say that 
he has united and pledged himself to an association hostile to 
their interests. It has often been said by him, on the floor of 
Congress, "that Colonization was the great and perhaps only 
means by which our country could ever be relieved from the 
burden of slavery; that in no other way could America, and the 
Christian world, discharge the onerous debt, owed by them 
to Africa. For at an early period, that quarter of the globe 
sent out, and spread over the w T orld, the light of letters, science, 
and civilization. The return made for these blessings has been, 
beyond all measure, unjust and cruel. The nations of the earth 
have not only established, on her soil, the most unrelenting 
tyranny ; but they have dragged her unoffending children into 
every quarter of the world ; and from generation to generation, 
chained them down, father and son, to a load of perpetual 
slavery. Colonization, by founding a state in Western Africa, 



184 MEMOIR OF, &c. 

may establish there, equal laws, free institutions, and republican 
government. Migration, at first small, but gradually increasing, 
will fill up their numbers ; and in a few generations, the whole 
coast will be covered with well-informed, well-regulated, and 
powerful communities. Perseverance, prudence, Christian 
charity, and the aid of Divine Providence, will finally finish 
this great scheme of philanthropy ; and not only relieve the 
United States from what may otherwise rend them asunder ; 
but send back to Africa her own children, free, and enabled to 
enrich and enlighten their mother country, with letters, science, 
cultivation, and Christianity." 1 

1 Besides the discourses and speeches noticed in the preceding pages, Mr. 
Burges has delivered many others ; indeed, so numerous are they, that it 
would have been impracticable to have detailed the whole. Perhaps he is never 
more successful, than when he addresses his fellow-citizens of Rhode-Island, 
preparatory to their elections. On such occasions, where it would seem almost 
impossible to tread on classic ground, he frequently introduces allusions so beau- 
tiful, that the hearer supposes the idea could not be conveyed without their 
assistance. Few men in our country, we imagine, are more happy in unpre- 
meditated remarks, and few can command in a popular meeting, attention so 
profound. 



CONCLUSION. 



From the period of Mr. Burges's entrance into Rhode-Island 
College, until the present time, he has been an unwearied and 
habitual student. Eminence in his profession, and in a public 
capacity, was among his earliest resolutions ; and to the attain- 
ment of this end, his thoughts, habits, and purposes have been 
directed. Few men have been more assiduous in the various 
departments of study ; ancient and modern history, poetry, 
philosophy, and the sciences. This judicious application of 
time and opportunities has moulded his mind into beautiful 
proportions, and imparted to his speeches and discourses, an 
imaginative, classical, and eloquent character. He affords a 
practical illustration of that admirable truth maintained by 
Cicero — that eminent success in the Cabinet, in the Hall of 
Legislation, at the Bar, in the Pulpit, can be secured only by 
continued, patient study. The great Roman justly thought that 
the art of eloquence, to the acquisition of which his best days 
were devoted, could be gained in no other manner. To soar on 
its loftiest pinion, man must learn the deep springs of human 
passion, and feel that great interests are in peril ; and then he 
will move, persuade, or pacify. It is by study, that the book of 
philosophy is adorned with the sublime truths of Newton ; that 
in poetry breathes the living soul of Milton ; that in government 
is seen the radiant light of Bacon. All the leading names of 
past ages, are eloquent teachers of this truth. The most en- 
nobling forms of thought, the accumulated wisdom of other 
times, like present time, illustrate the same lesson ; and it is 
written in characters of light on every page, and on every great 

mind, 

x 



186 MEMOIR OF 

Exquisite powers, says an old and quaint writer, have their 
root in exquisite sensibility. Feeling, is a predominant quality 
with Mr. Bulges. It is exhibited on almost every occasion ; in 
the circle of friendship where are the most hallowed and cher- 
ished associations, and in his discourses and speeches. Whatever 
opinions he entertains, he feels an inward conviction of their 
valuable tendency. Hence, when at the Bar, the cause of a 
client was as precious to him as if it were his own. In the de- 
fence of a criminal, it seemed as if he were pleading that his 
own life might be prolonged, and that the penalties of law 
might visit some other head. On these occasions, his eloquence 
was irresistible ; because it struck the fine chord of human 
passion. It was by this rare union of thought and feeling, that 
crowds assembled to hear ; that the spirit of eloquence irradiated 
his legal arguments, communicating its influence to other 
minds and other hearts. 

By the operation of strong feelings, however, he is often be- 
trayed into errors. In the contending triumph and defeat of 
parliamentary life, he utters sentiments which are the offspring 
of strong emotions, rather than calm reflection. When opinions 
are enforced, detrimental to the public weal, in the ardor of 
reply, his language may be too severe, and his feelings too 
vehement. 

It is a remark of Burke, and he seems to have made it as 
referring indirectly to himself — "that a vigorous mind is as 
necessarily accompanied with violent passions, as a great fire 
with great heat." Oracle as he was, neither past experience 
nor the constitution of human nature will admit its justice. A 
vigorous mind, all will acknowledge, is often accompanied with 
violent passion ; but it is not its necessary companion. On the 
contrary, such a mind is guarded by judgment, prudence, and 
collected action. Occasions and circumstances may arise, when 
passion vanquishes its silent, yet powerful operations. The fate 
of a great cause is often involved in the debate of an hour. A 
vigorous mind then, will necessarily be accompanied with vio- 
lent passions ; for, in the pending controversy, are life, liberty, 
and property. It is excitement, deep and impassioned feeling, 



TRISTAM BURGES. 187 

arising from conflicting interests, which agitates the vigorous 
mind. Mr. Burges, in this qualified sense, is a remarkable 
illustration of Burke's sentiment. 

But leaving his private, let us delineate the features of his 
political character. When the old party distinctions of federal, 
and republican existed, he belonged, as before intimated, to the 
former party, and was ardently engaged in the contests of that 
period. The opinions he then entertained*, of the powers and 
influence of the State and United States Governments, have not 
been changed. The Constitution he maintains, was the act of 
the People of the United States in the aggregate ; not of the 
several States ; or of the States as sovereign communities ; but 
the act, as its language speaks, of " The People of the United 
States." It is their Government ; its powers were granted by 
them, for their own use and benefit. In all its operations, it is 
responsible to them. The control exercised over it, must be 
exercised by the People. It is their creature, their agent, for 
specific purposes. The States, therefore, possess all powers, 
except those granted by the Constitution to the United States ; 
for that instrument, is the supreme law. All powers not vested 
by the people in Congress, nor prohibited by the Constitution to 
the States, are reserved to the States. It is ordained and estab- 
lished by " The People of the United States, to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, 
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, 
and secure the blessings of liberty." It is then, a popular 
government ; because it emanates from the people, and is main- 
tained by the people. 

The writings of Mr. Burges, betray striking peculiarities of 
thought and diction. When he discourses on topics connected 
with literature and taste, he displays a rare union of imaginative 
and classical beauties. His compositions on government and 
political economy, are replete with historical illustrations, strong, 
and practical. Metaphorical expressions give great energy to 
language ; and as a general remark, they occur often in his 
writings, and add to their strength and elegance. In many 
instances, however, they are extravagant, and do not satisfy a 



188 



MEMOIR O F 



refined taste. But for a union of these qualities, coupled with 
an emphatic meaning to every word, his speeches excel his 
writings. The latter are formed in the closet, removed from 
the inspiring presence of a crowded assembly, and, therefore, 
not so eloquent. The place where a multitude is gathered, is 
the place to judge of the excellencies of his mind. There, all 
the energies of his soul are aroused, by conflict with other intel- 
lects. The greater the occasion, the more powerful the adver- 
sary, the more commanding is his oratory. 

Mr. Burges's style of speaking is often too vehement ; occa- 
sionally, he deals in nice refinements of language : yet his 
style is formed on no one model, and, therefore, it resembles the 
speaking of no other man. It is his own, with its faults and 
beauties. If one word could convey a just idea of the whole, 
we should term it captivating. His voice is not remarkable for 
its sweetness ; but it is strong, and in its deepest intonations, 
melodious. It is capable too, of an exquisite variety of tones. 
It will speak the calm reasonings of philosophy, and the exciting- 
passions of the soul, with inimitable power. His cadences fall 
upon the ear, with a prolonged beauty ; and his emphasis and 
pauses are admirably managed. His gestures are frequent, yet 
employed only when the thought requires them. They are 
always emphatic. A wave of the hand expresses sentiments 
and emotions which others convey only by words. His articu- 
lation is remarkably distinct ; every sentence is pronounced with 
a full, deliberate enunciation. One cause of Mr. Burges's suc- 
cess in oratory may be attributed to his knowledge of human 
nature. Much of that, knowledge was acquired in the begin- 
ning of life. The variety of his occupations led him into fre- 
quent conflict with men ; and their dispositions, pursuits, and 
general rules of conduct, he made a study. His profession, also, 
was a tributary stream, continually flowing onward, and gather- 
ing new volume, as his practice increased. The Bar is a thea- 
tre, where human nature is displayed in its darkest and finest 
expressions. Accustomed to watch the springs of passion, he 
soon acquired the art to move and enkindle the feelings of 
popular assemblies. Hence, few have been more successful in 



TRISTAM SURGES. 189 

directing the movements of such assemblies. A general silence, 
an interest, that never falters, attend all his efforts. 

To live in human memory, and to place on the roll of time 
some memorial of himself, has evidently ever been one of his 
cherished desires. He is ambitious ; and, therefore, participates 
in that infirmity, as it is denominated, of great minds ; the same 
which heaved in the breast of Washington ; which has breathed 
in the lines of poetry ; which has set in our political firmament 
those living stars, shining with undimmed lustre and guiding to 
Union and Independence. In mechanical and agricultural em- 
ployments he was ambitious. The first honors of the University, 
his professional accomplishments, and present distinction, all 
were attained by its influence. "When we feel ourselves," as he 
once beautifully remarked, " borne along the current of time ; 
when we see ourselves hourly approach that cloud, impenetrable 
to the human eye, which terminates the last visible portion of 
this moving estuary ; who of us, although he may hope when 
he reaches it, to shoot through that dark barren, into a more 
bright and peaceful region, yet who can feel himself receding 
from the eye of all human sympathy, leaving the vision of all 
human monuments; and not wish as he passes by, to place on 
those monuments, some little memorial of himself; some volume 
of a book; or, perhaps but a single page, that it may be 
remembered, 

* When we are not, that we have been.' " 

The mind of Mr. B urges, in all its shades and peculiarities, 
cannot be precisely delineated. It is difficult to balance the op- 
posing elements of any mind, or to convey an accurate idea of 
all its resources and attainments. The most correct inferences 
may be drawn from works. We think, as before intimated, 
that upon them he has established a permanent and just renown. 
Intellectual greatness must be more conclusively defined, the 
true nature of genius solved, before a place can be selected in 
the temple of Fame, for all noble and far-reaching minds. 

Whatever may be the philosophical definition of genius, — 
when united with application, it furnishes the richest produc- 
tions of intellect. In Mr. Bulges, the combination of these 
qualities has directed his efforts to practical results. 



190 MEMOIR OF 

To study the various manifestations of genius ; its discoveries, 
applications and treasures, diffused over the region of science, 
imparts true happiness and wisdom. It is interesting to select 
examples of greatness, and to contemplate them in retirement, 
in the commingled interests of society, and learn each progres- 
sive step in their career. Thus are obtained, not only an esti- 
mate of mind and character, but a valuable collection of facts, 
illustrating lives celebrated in the annals of a country. The 
excellencies of a statesman who looks beyond and above mere 
party politics, may be studied. The record of his name will be 
associated with all that tends to elevate and adorn human 
nature. In whatever quarter a system of public improvement 
may originate, he will be found its advocate. Power is, with 
him, an instrument of good. Its possession is cherished, not 
because it brings the flattery of united millions ; but, because it 
enables him to separate truth from the dominion of error ; to 
sway with a generous purpose the wills and energies of other 
men ; to furnish examples for coming ages, and to guide nations 
in the path to glory. And on the other side, we can discrimi- 
nate between intellectual and military renown; perceive how 
they differ in their incipient state and final termination ; how 
ennobling are the victories of the one, compared with those of 
the other. 

There is, indeed, a strong and controlling interest attached to 
the history of a military conqueror. His life is given to deeds 
of arms. It is affecting, from the stirring scenes and incidents 
recorded ; the triumphs on land and ocean; the skill to direct, the 
nerve to conquer, the power to rule ; and at last to unfurl the 
banner, that it may wave as an emblem of national glory. 
Such relations, moreover, afford an insight into the wonderful 
book of human nature ; for they teach of the outward and 
inward workings of passion, and of mind; and the results to 
which they tend. But all these do not impart such instruction 
as may be drawn from the life of a philosopher, moralist, or 
statesman. Their victories are magnificent discoveries, refined 
systems, and enlightened maxims. The closet is their field of 
preparatory exertion, and the world is the recipient of their 



TRISTAM BURGES. 191 

efforts. To inscribe one great thought, on the enduring page 
which shall be transmitted to other regions, make the despot's 
throne quake, call up in future time, and in other minds, its 
own animating light and controlling power, requires mightier 
energies than to win the battle-field. He whose name is on 
the roll of statesmen, or who is renowned in the sanctuary of 
justice, or skilled in philosophy, the disciple of freedom will im- 
plore his spirit to hover over a people struggling for their rights ; 
the tongue that speaks in the hall of justice, will catch a spark of 
true eloquence ; the province of philosophy will be enriched by 
great examples. 

From what has been written concerning Mr. Burges, in the 
preceding pages, united with the many beautiful and characte- 
ristic passages from his own writings, we may confidently claim 
for him the true elements of greatness. Let memory go back to 
his young days, and contemplate the vicissitudes of that period ; 
his employments, habits, and limited means for the acquisition 
of knowledge ; let his collegiate honors, and professional career 
be remembered ; and then view him as he now stands before his 
country, and none will dispute his title to eminence. That 
country in her brightest, as in her darkest period, looks to such 
citizens for counsel, and their animating voices are heard plead- 
ing for her rights, and exhorting to patriotism. And when the 
pillars of the Constitution are almost all destroyed, and the 
hopes of freedom are waning, how apposite is this picture of 
that Union, which is the fruit of the primary principles of our 
Revolution. 

"This Union is the depository of national glory, and the bul- 
wark of our freedom. It is presented to the eye by every 
possible device. ' Unwn e pluribus,' glitters on our coin. The 
scattered oaks of our mountains, have grown into a united navy ; 
the thunder of the United States has echoed from shore to shore 
of the ocean ; and the Union eagle, has swept his broad wing, 
against the distant margin of the sky. 

"Divided efforts in favor of this Union, are feeble ; united, irre- 
sistible. The physical, no less than the moral world, is filled 
with demonstrations of this truth. The hand of infancy might 



192 MEMOIR OF, &c. 

poise and scatter the multitudinous waters of the world, if divided 
into drops ; but united in rivers and seas, it foams in waves, it 
roars in cataracts, and the barriers of the ocean are beaten down, 
the mountains cloven asunder, by the resistless deluge. A 
breath of air is melody in the flute, refreshment in the breeze 
of summer evening; and you may stop it with your finger, or 
repel it with a veil of gauze ; but, pressed into the blustering 
battalions of the winds, it is a gale, a storm, a hurricane : it 
rends from the mountain oak its limbs ; sweeps away the labors 
of the year ; and, ' seizing the ruffian billows by the top,' min- 
gles the depths of ocean with the stars of heaven. My country- 
men, send up a prayer for ' Liberty, Glory, and Union.' " ■ 



PART II. 



SPEECHES. 



PART II. 



SPEECH ON THE JUDICIARY. 



Mr. Mercer of Virginia, introduced a resolution in relation to 
the Judiciary of the United States, in the House of Representatives, 
in December, 1825 ; which was subsequently modified as follows : 

" Resolved, That the Bill, be re-committed to the Committee, 
that brought it in, with an instruction so to amend it, as to discharge 
the Judges of the Supreme Court from attendance on the Circuit 
Court of the United States ; and further to provide an uniform effic- 
ient system for the administration of justice in the inferior Courts of 
the United States." 

Mr. Burges, addressed the House in the following 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Speaker — Unused to occasions like the present, and without 
any practice, other than forensic, I find myself, unadvisedly, engaged 
in deliberative debate, where nothing is worthy of attention, unless 
most valuable in material, and in detail most finished. If I could 
now fairly retreat, it would be impossible for me to proceed. Aban- 
doning myself, therefore, to your candor, Sir, and that of the House, 
I will look to the question for that support which a great question 
never fails to afford. 

This great question is the entire Judiciary of the United States. 
It was placed before Congress by the President ; has been by this 
House referred to the appropriate committee ; and they have detailed 
to us the great judicial diseases of the country, and proposed, by 
this Bill, a remedy for them. It, therefore, concerns the adminis- 



196 SPEECHES OF 

tration of national justice, and our attention is moreover loudly, called 
to it by a great and respectable portion of the American People. 

The resolution moved by the honorable gentleman from Virginia, 
(Mr. Mercer,) proposes a recommittment of the whole subject ; to the 
intent that, the Judiciary, built at several times, and in distinct parcels s 
may be re-edified into one great whole, and accommodated to the 
present and future wants of the nation. The system of the Bill is a 
Supreme Court, holding one term only, each year, sitting at Wash- 
ington only ; and beginning that term on the first Monday of Feb- 
ruary, as now is done ; a Circuit Court, according to the present 
Circuits, and four new ones, to be formed from the Circuit and the 
Districts comprehending the nine States in the Valley of the Missis- 
sippi. These ten Circuits are to embrace all the Districts in the 
United States, excepting those of West New- York, West Pennsyl- 
vania, and West Virginia, alone. In every District but these three, 
District Judges alone shall be compelled to sustain District jurisdic- 
tion only, hold District rank, and receive District salary ; in these 
three, with the same pay, and same rank, they shall be obliged to 
perform Circuit duties, and sustain Circuit jurisdiction. In each of 
the other Districts, formed into ten Circuits, justice shall be adminis- 
tered by a Circuit Judge, sustaining the jurisdiction, holding the rank, 
and receiving the salary, of a Circuit Judge and a Supreme Judge, 
at the same time ; and these, united together, shall form a Supreme 
Court of ten Judges. These, Sir, are the peculiar provisions of the 
Bill. 

The resolution is intended to embrace another system. Each 
District shall remain as now. All the Districts of the United States 
shall be formed into ten Circuits. The whole United States shall be 
arranged into three great Supreme Court Departments ; an Eastern, a 
Central, and a Western. In each District, as now, shall be a District 
Court, holden as at present, by the same Judge, with the same 
jurisdiction, rank, and salary. In each Circuit shall be a Circuit 
Court, holden at the same times and places as at present, and a 
Circuit Judge shall be appointed for each Circuit, with only Circuit 
Court salary, rank, and jurisdiction. In each of the Supreme Court 
Departments, shall be holden a term of the Supreme Court once in 
each year. At Washington, Philadelphia, or Richmond, on the 
first Monday of January ; at. Columbus, Lexington, or a city in 
Tennessee, once in each vear, on the first Mondav in June ; and at 



T R I S T AM BURGES. 197 

New-York or Boston once in each year, and on the first Monday of 
September. This Court, so soon as constitutional causes shall have 
reduced it to that number, shall consist of six Judges, sustaining all 
the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and bearing the same rank, and receiving the same salary, 
as Judges of the Supreme Judicial Court of the United States now 
bear and receive. These, Sir, are the provisions intended to be 
secured by the Resolution. You therefore perceive, Sir, that the 
subject of debate is a choice between the provisions of the Bill and 
the proposals of the Resolution. To me, it seems proper, first to 
speak concerning the Bill, and then to say a few things concerning 
the Resolution. 

Perhaps it may be needful, before debating the question, to remove 
some general and specific objections. It has been said, that this is 
an improper time to amend the Judiciary. Because, 1st — One of 
the States is agitated and embroiled with the General Government ; 
2d — Another is deeply dissatisfied with the result of the Presidential 
Election ; 3d — Resolutions are poured in from every quarter for 
altering the Constitution ; 4th — The President is not yet quietly 
seated on his throne. To all these it may be replied, that the agita- 
tions of that State sound more in words than in substantial damages. 
Men whom we daily see here with us from that State, are too wise 
and too patriotic to suffer that or their country to receive any serious 
injury from these discords. One eminent citizen lately returned to 
her bosom, has exchanged too many and too high pledges with the 
nation, ever to give the aid of his influence to any unreasonable 
sectional demands ; and without that aid, no such demands can be 
dangerous to this Union. After all, none of us can fairly say, that 
this question, growing as it does out of a Treaty, either fairly or 
fraudulently made, threatening as it is represented to be, is of legis- 
lative, and not rather of judicial jurisdiction. It would be indeed 
surprising if a suit either at law or in equity, between parties of the 
highest rank, should ever agitate or endanger the Government of 
this country. The other dissatisfied State has deposited a stake in 
the Union, too dear to her ambition to do or consent to a single 
deed, perilous to that depository. Her illustrious citizen is a candi- 
date for the next Presidency. Will she abate the title, and sink 
the fee simple of the whole estate, before she can place her tenant in 
possession of his term ? 



198 SPEECHES OF 

The numerous resolutions for altering the form of our Government, 
will follow the numerous generations of the same race, which have 
gone before them. We shall discourse and vote concerning them ; 
bind, letter, and deposite them in the Legislative archives ; and the 
million copies of them printed, and spread over the country, will 
survive as long, and subserve the same purpose, as does the fugitive 
fabric " in which they live, and move, and have their being." The 
People will (thanks be to Him who has blessed them with the right) 
if they please, and when they please, amend their Constitution ; all 
our profound reasonings, and patriotic recommendations, to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. 

The President does not, and I trust no Chief Magistrate of the 
United States ever will, set on a throne. There now lives, and de- 
lightful is the hope that for many coming centuries there will live, 
in this first, and perhaps last, region of genuine Republican Govern- 
ments, many a Junius ready to raise the hand, brandish the crimson 
steel, and swear by the Guardian Power of Nations, that in our 
Rome, while he lives, no king shall ever reign. The distinguished 
gentleman, now directing the Executive affairs of the United States, 
was placed in his seat, in the same Constitutional manner, as was 
one other great citizen of our nation, heretofore placed there ; and I 
trust he will hold his place as securely, and as prosperously, as did 
that illustrious individual. Whether he will have another term, is 
another question. The solution of it depends on the nation and on 
himself. If that be not oblivious of its own interest ; and if he continue 
to be the same profound scholar, the same enlightened statesman, 
the same ardent patriot, the same exemplary Christian, prophecy 
need not be invoked to tell us, that the nation will, for the usual 
period, continue to enjoy the benefit of his labors, and to participate 
in his fame. 

Throughout the whole debate, the opposers of the system of the 
Resolution misconceive, for they continually misstate, the objections 
made by the opposers to the system of the Bill. They call them, 
1st — A denial of Justice. 2d — They pronounce them to be the same 
oppressive measures which originated the war of Independence. 
3d — They denounce against them the lex talionis. 4th — They warn 
them that their Supreme Court will become odious to the People. 

Does the present system deny justice to any man ? Extra judic- 
ial causes may obstruct the course of it ; but is that a denial of the 



TRISTAM BURGES. 199 



right to justice itself? As well may they say, that, because the 
snags and sawyers of their rivers obstruct the passage of their ves- 
sels upon them, Government, unless she remove those obstructions, 
denies the right of these people to navigate those waters. The 
opposers of this Bill are not answerable for the inconvenient struc- 
ture and slow movements of the old judiciary machine, or the 
diminished quantity of work produced by its operations. Neither 
do they propose to repair it by some two or three additional wheels, 
or any quantity of supplemental gearing. They do not believe it 
worth repairing ; or that any amount of costs will put it in condition 
to do the judicial work of the nation even " pretty well," for any 
thing like " twenty years." They propose to rebuild it on the true 
Constitutional model ; and accommodate its structure, speed, and 
production, to the movements and wants of the present, and probable 
future condition of the nation. Adopt the system of the Resolution, 
and you will have no obstruction, no delay, no denial of justice. 

What is there, in the opposition to this Bill, resembling the unfeel- 
ing and oppressive cases of the Revolutionary War? Are the 
opposers kings ? Are the advocates of it their colonists ? Do these 
men, at their own pleasure, appoint, pay, and displace the Judges of 
those Courts ? Do they deprive them of the trial by Jury ? or do 
they, for trial, transport them out of the vicinage, and beyond sea ? 
These were among the causes which produced the War of the 
Revolution ; and separated these States from the parent nation. 
What in this procedure resembles those causes ? Yet this parallel 
has been drawn in this House ; and the sketch, such as it is, pub- 
lished, sent over our country, and will be spread over Europe. 
" On eagles' wings, immortal scandals fly." The next importation 
of Reviews will bring us a profound discourse on the probable dis- 
union of these States ; so, and so grossly, do we abuse " Heaven's 
first, best gift to man," language — the rich medium, by which alone, 
any portion of the treasured capital of intellectual opulence can be 
circulated in the world. We debase it to the very offices of the 
miser's woollen purse, which, elastic in its texture, adheres closely 
to his thumb and finger, cautiously introduced to extract a four 
pence-half-penny ; or stretches to the extended hand of his heir, 
thrust in up to his elbow, to clutch and draw out a fist full of 
eagles. Well might the lad swear " his sister should have no 
name ; because a name was a word, and a word might be abused : 



200 SPEECHES OF 

and so his sister's good name might come to be abused by every 
clown." 

Why are the opposers of this Bill from the " Old Thirteen," 
threatened with retaliation, by its advocates from the New States ? 
Whom, and what do they menace ? Their brethren, and the home 
of their fathers. " They went out from us," not " because they 
were not of us." They are still children of the great household, 
though settled upon, and cultivating different allotments of the com- 
mon inheritance. Their paternal sepulchres are with us ; and will 
they leave us alone to defend them ? The Scythian, though he 
might not fight for his pasture, his flocks, or his tent, yet, when re- 
treat had brought him back to the grave of his father, would he 
there, by that consecrated mound, and in defence of it, make the 
deadly stand, and mortal battle. When, in our sober autumns, 
they visit us, as they often do, they see the frail memorial yet 
standing on the green hill-side , and may there read many a holy- 
legend "that teach the rustic moralist to die." 

" The time will come," they exclaim, " when the Government 
shall be agitated to the very centre : and we may want some boon, 
like that now demanded by them." The perilous day may indeed 
arrive, when our common country, debased by luxury, agitated by 
faction, hardened by ambition, arrogant by power, shall not, by- 
piling all the massy and mountainous weight of our laws and insti- 
stitutions, upon this gigantic and bloody brotherhood of crime and 
slaughter, be able to hold them down subdued. In this tremendous 
day of national agitation and jeopardy, will these men, or the sons 
of these men, be found wanting ? They will not. We are all em- 
barked in one great national vessel, bound on one great, and, we 
hope, long and prosperous national voyage. Will they, in the night 
of storm, throw overboard our share of the cargo, with the vain 
hope of preserving their own ? We know they will not. Will they, 
on some lee shore, scuttle the ship to terminate the voyage ? Will 
they, in the hour of assailment or battle, pull down the colors and 
give up the ship ? We say, we know they will not. Why, then, 
these unavailing threats ? Brave men should never use them to 
brave men. Leave them for the accommodation of those who " die 
many times before their death." 

Will the time then come, when our Supreme Court shall be odious, 
unless the Judges of it continue to perform their own, and the ad- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 201 

ditional duties of Circuit Court Judges ? This doctrine is unknown 
to the Constitution. That projects a Supreme Judicial Court, sepa- 
rate and supervising all Courts of inferior jurisdiction. Will it 
become odious because it is Supreme ? Because neither the Exe- 
cutive or Legislative arm can demolish or diminish its power, or 
move a finger within the pale of its jurisdiction ? Or will it become 
odious, because it was established to protect, and will probably 
forever protect, the People from the usurpations of their own national 
servants ? Should it become odious because stationary, and jealousy 
may lead the nation to suspect that it is influenced by " the powers 
that be" and that act in this place ? Make it then, Sir, moveable, 
as the Resolution proposes. Place it before the nation, in the great 
departments of our country, that the People may see, and we know 
they will then reverence this hallowed ark of our national covenant. 
This apprehended odiousness is but an apprehension. Such a 
Court cannot be suspected ; it cannot be odious, so long as it is filled 
by the Marshalls and the Storys of our country. I do not name 
these gentlemen, in derogation of other Judges of that tribunal; but 
because I have the honor and pleasure of acquaintance with one of 
them, and because, not to know the character of the other, would 
argue myself more unknown, than, humble as I am, I can willingly 
acknowledge myself to be. 

One thing further: Some opposers of the Bill object, 1st — The 
augmented number of Judges ; 2d — These Judges will be selected 
from the West, and bring into the Court sectional prejudications ; 
3d— A majority law is to ride in upon the back of this Bill, making 
the unanimous vote of six, seven, eight, or perhaps nine Judges 
necessary to a decision. 

If adding three, and making the number of Judges ten, were the 
only objection, I would have given the House no trouble on the 
present occasion. Ten Judges may deliberate nearly as well as 
six. It belongs to the advocates of this Bill to prove, that the 
greater number can deliberate better than the lesser number can. 
If they cannot prove this, why should the Judiciary field be incum- 
bered with supernumerary laborers, or the national means consumed 
in creating and paying sinecure salaries ? 

The second objection is, I agree, answered, by the consideration 
that the President cannot, by law, be restricted to any District of 
the Union, in selecting Judges of the Supreme Court. When he 



202 SPEECHES OF 

does nominate, I will not believe he will nominate, or the Senate 
approve, any but men superior to all sectional, legal, or moral ob- 
jections. 

Congress cannot control the decisions of the Supreme Court. 
They, as a separate, co-ordinate, and independent power, received, 
like the Legislature, their authority from the People, by the 
Constitution. Such a law might incumber, but could not circum- 
scribe, their adjudication ; and would subserve no other purpose 
than that of showing to the nation and the world, that we neither 
regard the political rights of others, nor understand the limits of 
our own. 

The argument of my colleague, delivered to this House against 
this Bill, in Committee of the Whole, has drawn from our honorable 
friend from Ohio, (Mr. Wright,) something like a reproach, if a 
gentleman of so much genuine courtesy could utter a reproach, on 
Rhode-Island. " She did not join the Union till the eleventh hour, 
and though so late herself at the wedding feast, would now hinder 
others, at this late hour, from receiving their full share of it." Let 
the gentleman take the entire benefit of his sarcasm. Rhode-Island 
did come late to the wedding. She was always late when national 
bounties were to be divided ; but always early when national dan- 
gers were to be encountered. She was indeed, for herself, " last at 
the feast ;" but she was, for her country, first at the fight. 

What then, Sir, are the judicial evils pressed on the attention of 
this House, by the movers of this Bill 1 They are : 1st — an accu- 
mulation of causes in the Supreme Judicial Court ; and, 2d — an ac- 
cumulation of causes in the Circuit Courts of the West. For the 
purposes of this argument, I agree with these gentlemen in the seve- 
ral items of these evils ; and in the sum total, according to their 
stated account of them. One hundred and eighty causes lie over, 
yearly, on the docket of the Supreme Court. These remain there, 
continued from term to term, from three to five years. The amount 
of expenses to each party, at each term, on an average of all the 
causes, cannot be, for fees, attendance, and agency, much less than 
six hundred dollars ; so that, probably, all the plaintiffs pay yearly, 
one hundred and eight thousand dollars ; and all the defendapts a 
like annual amount. This accumulation, it must be confessed, will 
be greatly augmented when you shall, as proposed by the Bill, have 
removed the obstructions now literally choking the channels of jus- 



TRISTAM B URGES. 203 

tice in the Western States. All the great causes accumulated there 
in consequence of the entire deficiency of judicial labor in that vast 
region, fertile as it is represented to be, by the friends of the Bill, in 
legal question and controversy, will, by the three new Judges, and 
four new Circuits, be speedily tried, adjudged, and appealed ; or, at 
least, a great number of the most heavy in amount, and intricate in 
principle, will be appealed to the Supreme Court. In the West, this 
accumulation is still more appalling : in some districts, three hun- 
dred, some four hundred, some five hundred, and seven hundred 
causes ; in all, from seventeen hundred to two thousand, lie over, 
untried, at each term ; and the number is increasing to an alarming 
amount of accumulation. 

These evils are to be remedied by this Bill. The nine States of 
the Mississippi Valley are arranged into four Circuits ; and three 
new Judges are to be appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court. 
The reasons for this measure are widely spread, and of various cha- 
racter. They may, however, Sir, all be comprehended in three : 
1st — it will equalize judicial administration: 2d — it will equalize 
judicial representation : 3d — it will equalize judicial knowledge of 
State Laws. 

Judicial administration is said to be unequal, because District 
Judges, in the Western Districts, hold Circuit Courts, and decide 
great causes of life and property ; while such causes are, in other 
Circuits, decided by Judges of the Supreme Court. These District 
Judges are of inferior rank ; inferior salary ; and of course, say the 
gentlemen, of inferior talents. This inequality was the basis of the 
able argument, made in favor of this Bill, by the gentleman of the 
Judiciary Committee, from South Carolina. Does this Bill remedy 
this inequality ? It does not even propose to do it. In West New- 
York, West Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, at least one million 
of people are left to endure this inequality. Away then with all 
pretensions to equality, when you exclude one tenth part of the 
people from all benefit of your new system. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, aware of this difficulty, claims 
this system for each State. " It is enough that our pride demands 
it ; enough that it will gratify our pride." " If it will feed nothing 
else it will feed" our pride. Be it so then ; but let the indulgence 
be equal. Let every State have her Judge ; for every State has 
her something whereof to be proud. If Judges are to be alloted by 
this ratio, we shall all give the first rank to Virginia ; and the same 



204 SPEECHES OF 

reference to Revolutionary glory will give the second to Rhode- 
Island. If, in the last war, Tennessee were justly proud of her 
Wellington of the West, might not the sea-green Island of New- 
England, with equal pride, as fairly boast her Nelson of the Lakes ? 
This question of pride, I am willing to own, has little connection 
with the appointment of Judges. States are not recognized in the 
judicial system of the nation. By the Constitution they are amal- 
gamated ; and by the law of 1789, they were divided into Districts 
and Circuits ; and their several boundaries are no otherwise regard- 
ed than as the limits of these Judicial Territories. These were es- 
tablished, not to create offices and salaries for individual benefit, but 
to dispense that justice which, by the Constitution of the United 
States, the Government promised to provide for the People. 

What instance, Sir, of injustice has been detailed in all this de- 
bate ? No error of intention, no error of neglect, no error of igno- 
rance has been set down to the account of these meritorious and 
much-abused District Judges. The smallest and the greatest causes 
have been examined and adjudged, with the most scrupulous regard 
to justice. Not one judicial injury has been done by these men 
throughout those whole nine States. It is not for lack of justice that 
they cry out ; but for lack of rank and salary. They are satisfied 
with the service of the altar, but not with the grade of the priest. 
They do not say the victim is not well selected for sacrifice and for 
food ; but they are utterly dissatisfied with the richness of the gar- 
land. The viands of justice are abundant and wholesome. They 
only complain that they are served up and distributed to them on 
plain porcelain, and not on massy and glittering plate. Our country, 
Sir, our country is yearly doing miracles for the millions of her 
children ; and yet how justly might she address to them the mild 
and merciful rebuke of the Prophet of Nazareth : " Ye follow me 
not for the miracles which I wrought, but because ye ate of the 
loaves and were filled." 

The second great argument for this Bill, Sir, is, that it will equal- 
ize judicial representation. W T e are told by the honorable gentle- 
man from Ohio, (Mr. Wright,) of the Judiciary Committee, that our 
Government is representative, and the Judiciary, because it is a part 
of it, is therefore representative. The honorable gentleman from 
Massachusetts, (Mr. Webster,) Chairman of the Committee, has told 
us, that the extent of the number of Judges of the Supreme Court, 



TRISTAM B URGES. 205 

must be limited only by the line of practical inconvenience. This 
is, indeed, heterodoxy in politics. No such doctrine can be found 
in the Constitution. What does it mean, this judicial representa- 
tion ? Is it a representation of the talents, science, and legal learn- 
ing of the several States ? If so, why did not the Constitution pro- 
vide that a judge or judges should be selected from a particular 
State, or number of States ? No such provision is found in the Con- 
stitution, as made by the People ; nor can Congress, in the plenitude 
of their power, now add such a provision to that great political char- 
ter. The President and Senate have, therefore, the whole range of 
the United States for nomination and approval ; and talents, learn- 
ing, and integrity are excluded from the Bench by no sectional 
disqualification. A representation of these exalted qualities, then, 
can form no part of that judicial representation, intended to be se- 
cured by the provisions of this Bill. 

It must, therefore, Sir, be, that political representation is to be 
secured by this system. A Judge must bring a knowledge of the 
statistics of his Circuit, into the Supreme Court. He must lay before 
the learned Bench, the extent of its territory, amount of its popula- 
tion, capital, labor, skill, production, commerce, consumption ; and all 
the various details of " the nature and causes of the wealth of States." 
Not to know these things, would disgrace the character of any man 
of science and knowledge in the nation ; and, therefore, instituting a 
system of judicial law, with any view of bringing the learned Bench 
of our Supreme Court acquainted with these things, would not only 
be utterly useless, but highly derogatory to that distinguished body. 
What have they to do with questions of this kind, as Judges ? Is 
not the smallest, equally with the largest, the poorest, equally with 
the most opulent and flourishing State, entitled to justice before the 
Supreme Judicial Court of the nation ? 

Still the advocates of the Bill demand political representation in 
this tribunal. Although they have not committed themselves to the 
restraint of definition, yet, if their representation be not of talent, if 
it be not of statistics, then, Sir, it must be a representation of the po- 
litical parties of a State. It must comprehend all the great doctrine 
of electioneering ; the whole learning of public address, either from 
the press or the stump ; and the entire array of interests, sections, 
families, patronage, proper to be brought into service, to push a man 
either into office, or out of it. Can any individual not lost to reason, 



206 SPEECHES OF 

desire a plan for carrying this kind of representation into the Supreme 
Judicial Court of our country ? The naked possibility that such an 
event may ever happen, fills the mind with horror. Well might the 
honorable gentleman from North Carolina exclaim, in the fullness of 
patriotic indignation, " that it would, indeed, be abominable." From 
whatever point of view, therefore, Sir, you look at this political re- 
presentation, in our august tribunal of national justice, you see it at 
war with the Constitution, and abhorrent to the principles of reason, 
and the feelings of patriotism. 

The third great reason, Sir, offered in support of the provisions of 
this Bill, is, that they will equalize a knowledge of State laws. This 
argument is unsound. Because, 1st — No such inequality exits ; and 
2d — If it did, the method here proposed would not afford a remedy 
for it. Consider, if you please, Sir, what, by his oath, a Judge of 
the Supreme Court is fairly presumed to know ; the extent and va- 
riety of his law learning ; and the questions which may come before 
him either by original jurisdiction, or appeal. 1st — All causes of 
ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls. Here may be, 
and is, required, extensive knowledge of the laws of nations. 2d — 
All cases in law and equity. The requirements of these, will spread 
before him all the principles of the common, and all the principles of 
the civil law. These two great codes dividing the empire of almost 
the whole civilized world, not by perpetual war, like the German 
and Roman, who originated them, but with a peaceable, common, 
and, in many countries, a concurrent dominion — remain to nations 
as a kind of imperishable memorial of the conquests of mind, when 
those of arms have long since ceased to have a place on the earth. 
They remain to these United States, and to each of them. They 
were brought to this country by our ancestors ; who shared them 
with their countrymen, as an unalienable portion of their political 
heritage. They are the great elements of all the laws of all the 
States. Wherever a drop of Saxon blood circulates in American 
veins, there, the people's law, the common law, is the citizen's 
birthright. There too, the civil law, the controlling and ameliora- 
ting principles of equity and good conscience, are found and enjoyed. 
These mark out, and designate, all the rights of persons, and rights 
of things, to be cherished and protected ; and all the wrongs of per- 
sons, and wrongs of things, to be eschewed and punished ; and, 
moreover, cover them all with a great and healing system of protec- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 207 

tion and remedy. No man can be elevated to the Supreme Judicial 
tribunal of our country, without comprehensive, minute, and exten- 
sive knowledge of these laws. 3d — These cases are to arise under 
the Constitution. This Judge must, then, make himself acquainted 
with every various construction of that instrument ; and be, in all 
respects, a great constitutional lawyer. 4th — Or they are to arise 
under the laws of the United States ; for adjudicating such causes, 
therefore, he must be equally and profoundly read in the laws and 
Constitution of our country. 5th — All cases of admiralty and mar- 
itime jurisdiction come before him. The principles governing these 
cases, comprehend the laws of ships, freight, wages, insurance, prize, 
ransom, salvage ; and all the laws of the sea, now extant, originating 
since the Phoenician mariner first spread his purple pennon to the 
light breeze of the Levant ; or, more adventurous, drove with oar 
and sail, his foaming prow out between the pillars of Hercules. 6th 
— The Constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States, are the 
supreme law of the land, notwithstanding the Constitution and laws 
of any or all the several States, may conflict with them. Such a 
Judge must, therefore, have studied the laws of every State, so far 
as they are to be compared with the laws, or treaties, or Constitu- 
tion of the United States. 7th — Cases where a State is a party, 
come before the Supreme Court originally ; but States may be made 
parties where citizens of the same State litigate land titles derived 
from different States ; a Judge of the Supreme Court is, therefore, 
bound to know all the land laws of such cases, as well in these 
Western States, as all others in the Union. 8th — Questions between 
States are of original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court. A Judge 
of that Court must, therefore, know all that relates to original char- 
ter, or boundary law of each. State ; as well as all confirming or 
conflicting State law, or adjudication, on all such questions as may 
come before him, on trial between such high contending parties. 
How, Sir, shall he make himself master of all these various, and 
almost innumerable laws ? Why, Sir, truly, not so much from the 
practise of courts, or conversation with men, as from books ; from 
his twenty years conversation with those great, and though silent, 
yet communicative masters of the treasured erudition of past ages. 
Can he not, then, Sir, learn what it may further befit him to know 
of any other laws, in the same manner, and by the same diligence ? 
Can he not learn this, also, from books ? What is it ? Whv, Sir, 



208 SPEECHES OF 

the statute alteration of the Common Law in eacli State, and their 
Court adjudications upon such statutes. These are all contained in 
their books, or in the records of such decisions. These nine States 
have no lex non scripta ; no local Common Law : for the oldest of 
them is not forty, and the youngest not five years of age ; and no 
usage can have grown up among them into the strength and vigor 
of Common Law, in any time less than that, " whereof the memory 
of man runneth not to the contrary." 

Can a Judge, Sir, not learn these by reading and study ? Can he 
thus make himself master of all the almost infinite variety and extent 
of all other laws ? and must he depend for a knowledge of these few 
items of State law, on the testimony of local Judges ? Tell it not, 
Sir, in hearing of those nations who, by their ambassadors, are near 
our Government in this City of Washington. Tell it not, in hearing 
of that gifted citizen, who first, in honorable field, lifted targe and 
lance against the learned chivalry of Europe, and in defence of the 
talent and science of our own country. Leave us not Sir, leave us 
not to the literary tomahawk and scalping-knife of the Giffords and 
Buffons of the old world. 

Judges, we are told, Sir, are to learn by travel. Whither, how, 
and addressing themselves to whom ? Not to visit law schools, or 
colleges of civilians ; not as the Solons or Platos of antiquity trav- 
elled to consult the Initiati of Sais, the Sanhedrim of Palestine, or the 
disciples of the Persian Zoroaster. They must, however, have the 
benefit of travel ; and if so, in the common method in coaches, wag- 
ons, solos, gigs, carryalls ; in steam-boats, packet-boats, and ferry- 
boats ; receiving the full benefit in eating-houses, taverns, boarding- 
houses, and bar-rooms, of the conversation of learned tapsters, 
stewards, and stage-coach drivers. No man, I must own, who 
travels in the ordinary method — and Judges can hardly afford to 
travel in different style — will lose any portion of these several sorts 
of accommodation and instruction. Judges will, in serious truth it is 
said, by travel, mingle with the People, and often come in contact 
with them. Will they mingle with the poor, the ordinary ? With 
mechanical men ; with middling interest men ; with the great com- 
munity of toil, and sinew, and production ? No, Sir, they can do no 
such thing. Let them have the humility of Lazarus, and the versa- 
tile affability of Alcibiades, and they can do no such thing. There 
is to such men, as it was once said of a learned Judge — than whom 



TRISTAM BURGES. 209 

no man ever bore his honors more meekly — there is, I say, to the 
feelings of such men, around a Judge, a kind of repulsive atmo- 
sphere. They stand aloof, and give him large room. They bow, 
not, indeed, with servility, but with profound respect ; and look 
towards him with a kind of hallowed reverence, as one set apart, 
and consecrated to the service, and surrounded by the ritual of 
justice. With all these men, the Judge can hold no tangible com- 
munion. The assurance of wealth, the confidence of rank, office, 
power, will press through this medium, and come hand to hand with 
him. Do the gentlemen, Sir, mean to say, that for such purposes, 
Judges should mingle with the People ? 

Sir, Judges of the Circuits, as we are told, are to communicate to 
the Supreme Court their various local knowledge. How ? Yes, 
Sir, how ? By books or by parol ? The facts, in the appealed 
causes, are placed on the record ; the law on which they have been 
decided is, like the ballad of the ancient bard, committed to memory ; 
and is to be said or sung, in open court. In this manner, each of 
the ten Judges of the Supreme Court is to learn all his knowledge of 
the leges loci, governing appealed causes. He may possibly know, 
and indeed by the reasonings on this Bill, he is supposed to know 
one-tenth part of his legal alphabet of twenty-four States ; that is to 
say, two letters and four-tenth parts of a letter. This may compre- 
hend all the great doctrine of locatives and entries, as the same was 
learnedly expounded to us, early in this debate. The Court, Sir, 
who try the appealed cause, must, according to the arguments of the 
friends of the Bill, learn the facts, the law, and the decision, from 
the Judge who tried the cause in the Court below ; and who, in sus- 
taining his own decision, is interested by the pride of opinion, the 
pride of character, and the avarice of fame ; and who, if he do not 
produce the books from which he drew his law, ought to place over 
his oral tradition of it, the Scotch bard's apology — 
" I cannot say how the truth may be ; 
I lell you the tale as 't was told to me." 

Will this mode of procedure, Sir, secure to appellants the benefit 
of a second trial ? Of the facts, there can be, there needs no second 
trial ; they are ascertained and placed on the record. They are to 
measure the facts by the law, and observe if that measure result in 
the former decision. Who places this measure in their hand ? The 
Judge who measured the article and placed the amount on the re- 

c* 



210 SPEECHES OF 

cord. If the Judge honestly give the law, as he understood, and still 
understands it to be, the Supreme Court must understand it as he 
understood it, and the cause must be decided as he decided it. You 
weigh the same article at the same scale beam, with the same weights. 
Its weight must be the same. The beam may be out of balance ; 
the weights too light or too heavy. These men, " measuring them- 
selves, are not wise." If you measure the same thing by the 
same thing ten thousand times, you cannot detect a single error. 
Would you, Sir, avoid this repetition of error 1 Give your Su- 
preme Court a check on the Circuit Judge. What shall it be ? 
A knowledge of the laws. If, therefore, Sir, your Supreme 
Judges are qualified for Supreme Judges, and all the nation know 
that they are, there exists no inequality in their knowledge of local 
law ; but if that inequality do exist, the provisions of this Bill cannot 
remove it. 

Sir, this Bill proposes to add three Judges to the Supreme Judicial 
Court, and to make the number ten. This, if a remedy for the 
evils at the West, is none for those at the very vitals of the Judic- 
iary — the accumulated mass of causes which have laid in the 
Supreme Court till, like an ossification in the heart of the animal 
body, they paralyze pulsation, and obstruct the wholesome circula- 
tion of justice, to the very extremities of the body politic. The Bill 
proposes for this evil no other remedy than three additional Judges. 
Can ten men do more judicial labor than seven can perform ? Moral, 
like mechanic or mathematical truth, is discovered by induction — 
a kind of process at which but one mind can labor. We do not 
learn that either Archimedes,, or Euclid, or Sir William Jones, was 
joined with any co-thinker adminicular to either of them, in his sub- 
lime speculations or discoveries. In money there may be copart- 
nership ; there can be none in mind. Here each one unless a pla- 
giarist, must trade on his own capital. Make your Judges, Sir, if 
you please, seventy-two, and, like Ptolemy, you will call on each 
one for a complete version. 

These gentlemen will tell us that, although this Bill gives no 
relief to the Supreme Court, yet there is on the stick a little bill, 
No. 15, giving a perfect remedy. Yes, Sir, sheets of legislation for 
the Western States ; ten lines only for the whole nation. It adds a 
month to the term of the Supreme Court ; a month, did I say ? No, 
not so much ; " not a little month ;" three weeks, eighteen working 



TRISTAM BURGESl. 211 

days. One long maritime cause from the East, or one broad land 
cause from the West, will consume two days ; and thus, the next 
year, nine more causes will be tried than will have been this year ; 
and so the number, standing over on the docket, will truly be one 
hundred and seventy-one and not one hundred and eighty. 

This Bill proposes to increase the Supreme Court, originally six 
but now seven, by adding three new Judges, and making the whole 
number ten. Can this, Sir, be ^constitutionally done ? All supreme 
judicial power is now lodged in the Supreme Court. What judicial 
power have you, then, Sir, to confer on your three new Judges ? 
Circuit Court power you certainly have, for all inferior Courts are 
within your control ; but all the supreme judicial power is already 
vested, and no part of it can be taken away. The Supreme Court 
is a whole, in all its parts, its properties, its extension, its relations. 
Have you the power to alter it ? How, then, can you add to it ? 
Or is it that wonderful entity which addition to it does not increase, 
or which, multiplied any number of times by itself, would continue 
to he the same 1 We shall all acknowledge, Sir, that Congress 
cannot require, by law, the President to select a Judge of the 
Supreme Court from any particular District or part of the United 
States ; but Congress can create a Court inferior to the Supreme 
Court, and among the legal qualifications of the Judge, insert an 
inhabitancy or residence within his territorial jurisdiction. This 
may be the Circuit Court. If, Sir, you then annex the office of such 
a Circuit Judge to that of a Judge of the Supreme Court, you require, 
by law, the President to select a Judge of the Supreme Court, from 
a limited and designated District of the United States ; that is to say, 
from the territorial jurisdiction of such Circuit Judge. The consti- 
tutional power of the Supreme Court is vested in the majority of 
that Court ; whatever shall change this relative proportion to the 
whole number of the number creating that majority, must change 
the vested power of that Court, and must, for that reason, be uncon- 
stitutional ; but four, the majority of six, is two-thirds of that Court ; 
whereas six, the majority of ten, is less than two-thirds of that 
Court. Making the number of Judges ten, is, therefore, altering the 
power of the Court, vested in two-thirds thereof, and giving it to a 
lesser proportionate number. 

It may, Sir, be set down as a political axiom, that, when you shall 
.have added so many Judges to the original number of the Supreme 



212 SPEECHES OF 

Court, as will make a majority or constitutional quorum of that 
Court, the judicial article of the Constitution will have been expunged. 
Add your three new Judges, it makes ten. This is four more than 
the original number ; six is a constitutional quorum often ; but four 
is a majority of that quorum, and may reverse all the decisions of 
the original Court. 

All decisions of the Supreme Court, on the Constitution, on trea- 
ties, and on laws, not enacted by Congress, are beyond the control 
of the National Legislature ; but if we can send into the Supreme 
Court an overruling majority, whenever the united ambition of Con- 
gress and the Executive may choose to do it, we place the Constitu- 
tion, and all treaties, and all Constitutions and laws of all the States, 
in the power of two branches of the Government, and thus erect 
ourselves into a complete tyranny ; and that, too, as the advocates 
of the Bill must contend, upon perfectly constitutional principles. 
Does the Constitution, Sir, thus place the Judiciary at the good will 
and pleasure of the other two branches of the Government ? No, 
Sir ; the Patriots who built, and the People who consecrated that 
glorious fabric, did not intend to devote their temple to the polluted 
oblations of Legislative ambition, or the unhallowed rites of Execu- 
tive subserviency. 

The wisdom of legislation, Sir, should look to the durability of her 
works. How long, Sir, will the Judiciary, as amended by the pro- 
visions of the Bill, continue to subserve and satisfy the wants of the 
country 1 Some of its advocates say twenty, some fifty, and some 
one hundred years. Yes, Sir, those gentlemen, who have, with all 
the force of facts, and all the resistless conclusions of reason, pressed 
on this House the unparalleled growth of Western wealth and 
Western population, do say that new States will not, in less than one 
hundred years, have been added to this Union in such a number as 
to require even one additional Judicial Circuit. Have they duly 
considered the various expansive principles of production and popu- 
lation in this country 1 A prescient policy should look to the future 
under the lights of the past. In twice that period, a few scattered 
families have augmented to more than ten million^Df people, cover- 
ing eight hundred and forty-seven thousand one hundred and eighteen 
square miles of territory, arranged into twenty-four United States, 
and requiring ten Judicial Circuits. Through this whole course, 
the people and the country seem to have multiplied and extended in 



TRISTAM BURGES. 213 

nearly a geometrical ratio. Ten millions of people not quite five 
years ago ; five millions of couples for heads of families ; and, at 
this moment, not less than two millions five hundred thousand of the 
whole number placed in that relation. Ordinary calculation may, 
under ordinary prosperity, expect to find in each family eight chil- 
dren. This will, in less than twenty years, give to our population 
twenty additional millions of people. Will not new States arise ? 
Already, Sir, you have three new territories. Florida is spreading 
her population down to the very margin of her waters, and enrich- 
ing her cultivation from " the cane-bearing isles of the West." 
Arkansas is looking up the channel of her long rivers, towards the 
mountains of Mexico, and will soon become rich, populous and highly 
cultivated. The tide of migration is setting up the grand canal 
towards Michigan, and that peninsula will, in a short period, be 
located and peopled, from lake to lake. These three, Sir, in less 
than five years, with due courtesy, and fair cause for admission, will 
knock at your door, and propose to sit down in the family circle of 
political Union. This is not all, Sir. Population is travelling up 
the latitude, across your North- Western territory, towards the great 
Caspian of our continent : and when they shall have heard of your 
ships on the waters of the Oregon, and of your colonies along the 
rich valley of that river — as, from the able report of the gentleman 
from Massachusetts, whose mind is capacious of such things, we may 
predict, they will very soon hear — these people will then, Sir, with 
the rapidity of a deep sea-lead, thrown from the chains of a seventy- 
four, plunge down the longitude to meet and to mingle with their 
countrymen on the waters of the Pacific. 

Twenty years, Sir ! Are we told the system of the Bill will ac- 
commodate and satisfy the Judicial wants of this country for twenty 
years ? In twenty years you will have ten new States, and thirty 
millions of people ! Why, Sir, in such a country — such a sun-bright 
region of hill and vale, mountain and moor, river, plain, lake, and 
all of boundless fertility — where population is busy on land and on 
ocean ; where, from the plough, the loom, and the soil, are contin- 
ually drawn the materials of food, clothing, habitation ; where the 
human arteries swell and pulsate with teeming existence ; where the 
human bosom heaves and palpitates with the fostering current of 
incipient life — what calculation will you make? What calculation can 
you make, approximating in any reasonable degree towards reality? 



214 SPEECHES OB' 

What then, Sir, the advocates of the system of the Bill may ask — 
what shall be done ? The opposcrs of it are prepared for the inter- 
rogatory : Adopt the system recommended by the Resolution. Re- 
store the Constitution. Trace out, and fill up, the great judiciary 
map of 1789 : revise, and correct, and establish the Constitutional 
lines of the law of 1801. We are told, Sir, by the gentleman from 
Illinois, that the experience of a single year overthrew that system. 
Was, then, the system of 1801 overthrown by experience 1 As well 
might the honorable gentleman tell us that brick, and granite, and 
marble, are improper materials for houses, and palaces, and temples ; 
because experience has taught us, that, at some times, and in some 
places, earthquakes have overthrown and demolished such buildings. 
" It was," says the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, Chair- 
man of the Judiciary Committee, " repealed in one yearm toto." Was 
it because that, or the law on which it was founded, was " enacted in 
the hurried session of the summer of 1789 ?" Because it was built 
on false analogies, or contained awkward provisions ? That session, 
Sir, was begun on the 4th of March, and ended on the 24th of Sep- 
tember. In this session, of somewhat more than six months, those 
illustrious men enacted twenty-seven laws, and passed three resolu- 
tions. Was this hurried legislation ? Why, Sir, many a Congress, 
since that period, putting no extraordinary vigor or hasty effort to 
the work, have, in less time, sent into the world a legislative progeny 
of from two to three hundred laws, great and little. What have we 
now, Sir, valuable, or of probable durability, and which w T as not pro- 
duced by that Congress, at that session ? The fiscal, the foreign, 
the war, the naval, and the judicial department, were then, and by 
those men, founded, erected, and finished. These great national edi- 
fices have stood, and I trusi will continue to stand : for, when the 
vandalism of faction shall demolish them, we shall cease to be a na- 
tion. Later times, it is true, have added, now and then, a piece of 
tiling, or a patch of paint ; and the nation has put itself to costs upon 
the interior garniture of them, the drapery, and other various orna- 
ment and accommodation ; but, otherwise, these valuable edifices are 
as old, as unaltered, and quite as venerable, as the Constitution itself. 
" Awkward provisions and false analogies," do we call any part of 
the Judiciary Act of that session ? It was, Sir, indicted by the 
Ellsworths and Hamiltons of those times — men, whose political 
Jittle finger was larger than the loins of politicians in these degene- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 215 

rate days. Why, Sir, do not men who know, tell us boldly for what 
cause the judiciary law of 1801 was repealed? Men of candor, 
and I trust, Sir, such men are in great numbers here, will all agree, 
that party overthrew that system. Why disguise it ? Those un- 
happy days are past, and we are indeed now all " brothers of the 
same principle." What was not demolished in those inconsiderate 
times ? The National Bank, the Army, the Navy, Fortifications — 
almost all that told the understanding, or the- eye, that we are one — 
tumbled into ruins, in the shock of that tremendous political earth- 
quake. Coming years brought better feelings and sounder reason- 
ings ; and men have profited of their experience, and re-edified all 
that was most valuable : The Bank, the Army, the Navy, the sys- 
tem of Fortifications ; and we are again a nation. Our fortresses 
on the ocean and on the land, look out from many a hundred iron 
eye, ready with indignation to blaze annoyance and destruction 
against hostile approach. Why, Sir, do you not follow this enlight- 
ened experience in your Judiciary ? The very Turk or Tartar, 
though he demolish the palace and temple of classical antiquity, yet 
will he draw from the ruins materials for his stable and his seraglio. 
He who does not profit by that of others, stands in the next rank of 
fatuity to hirn who is a fool in spite of his own experience. 

Let us not be told, Sir, that the system of the Resolution will aug- 
ment the judiciary expenses. What will be expended in one way, 
will be saved in another. A saving to the citizen is a saving to the 
nation. These Courts will perform, and finish the judiciary labor in 
every District, Circuit, and Department. It will bring justice home, 
u and that right early," to those who are now compelled to travel for 
it ; to wait for it ; and to lavish their subsistence on the means of 
acquiring it. It may diminish a productive employment for us who 
come here to legislate for our constituents ; and to litigate for our 
clients : but I trust we are sufficiently patriotic not to feel any 
attachment to a system, because it may augment our emoluments, 
when we know it must diminish the productive capital of our country. 
Sir, the People nbw expend less on the judiciary than on foreign re- 
lations. You give more, by some scores of thousands of dollars, for 
courtesy to other nations, than you pay for justice to your own citi- 
zens. It would be dishonorable to the Republic to be wanting to its 
dignity abroad ; but can it be honest to be wanting in justice to its 
own citizens at home. 

t 



216 SPEECH ESOF 

The system of the Bill, Sir, cannot, it is agreed that it cannot 
endure : for Circuits will become too numerous to add a new Judge 
to the Supreme Judicial Court for each Circuit. We are told in 
reply, that we should not legislate for posterity : " let posterity 
take care of itself." In what country, in what House, are we, Sir, 
told this ? Did the Pilgrims, the Bradfords, the Williamses, the 
Penns, the Smiths, migrate to this country for themselves, and not 
for posterity ? Look out upon our American world : not a govern- 
ment was instituted ; not a forest felled ; not a city founded ; not a 
house built ; not a tree planted ; and not for posterity. Where, 
and what should we have been, but for those who cared for poster- 
ity ? This House, Sir, the great model of art and taste ; the pride 
and ornament of our country, and of the republican world ; the 
magnificent forum of legislation ; the hallowed temple of justice — 
this House, Sir, was it built for us, and for the present generation 
only 1 No, Sir, it was founded by that man whose name spreads 
the light of glory over our nation, and whose whole life was but one 
act for his country — for the world, and for posterity. " Let pos- 
terity take care of itself!" To a gentleman who could feel and 
utter such a sentiment, I would address the words of the bereaved 
Macduff: " he hath no children." 

The system of the Resolution carries in itself the principle of du- 
rability. When new States shall be added to this Union, and form 
new Districts, their Judges will distribute justice, until enough for a 
new Circuit shall have been formed, and then this Circuit shall re- 
ceive a new Judge. This may be repeated as often as a new Cir- 
cuit may be formed ; until Circuit after Circuit shall be extended 
to the utmost limits of our national domain. The Supreme Court 
will sit a supervising tribunal — regulating and correcting every 
inferior jurisdiction. When the multiplied calls for justice shall re- 
quire, then it may be separated, like the highest English Courts, 
into a fiscal, a criminal, and a civil tribunal. Two Judges in each 
department, as they must of necessity be unanimous, will, almost of 
necessity, secure correct decisions. 

Thus, Sir, you may legislate, not for twenty years only, but, by 
Divine aid, for twenty centuries. Your judicial edifice will be ex- 
tended, with your extending country ; and will subserve the wants, 
and satisfy the requirements of these increasing States, and the 
multiplying millions of this great nation ; until the American Eagle 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



217 



shall, with one wing, winnow the breezes of the Atlantic, and with 
the other, hover over the quiet waters of the Pacific ; until the 
colossal power of the republic, standing on the lofty mountains of 
this continent, shall, with one hand, extend the olive branch to the 
peaceful nations of the earth, and with the other, wave the sword 
of justice over the satisfied and tranquil citizens of these widely- 
extended regions. 

I have thus, Sir, according to the limited measure of my ability, 
made an effort to sustain the Resolution, moved by the honorable 
gentleman from Virginia ; and I should be in some sort satisfied 
with that effort, could I have brought to his aid any portion of that 
efficiency, which, on a great and former occasion, was brought to 
the aid of an illustrious citizen of that State, by a son of Rhode- 
Island. ' 



SPEECH ON THE REVOLUTIONARY 
ARMY BILL. 

In explanation and support of the Amendatory Bills for relief of 
the Survivors of the Revolutionary Army, Mr. Burges addressed 
the Committee of the Whole House,, on the 4th of January, 1827, in 
the following 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Chairman — Although many things have already been said 
concerning the subject now before the Committee of the Whole 
House, yet, because, since that time, it was referred to the Committee 
on Military Pensions, and now comes up on their Report, some 
explanation of that Report may, at this time, be expected. I stand 
before you, Sir, for the purpose of attempting to make that explana- 
tion. Every thing connected with the Revolutionary War is inter- 
esting to the People of this country ; but nothing is so deeply inter- 
esting as the venerable survivors of that Army which conducted 
that war, in the camp and in the field. It is not from any powers 
at my command, of placing before you the concernments of these 
men, but from their moral qualities, and the peculiar relations exist- 
ing between them and our country, that I now hope for your candor, 
your patience, and attention ; and, notwithstanding their cause may 
be hopeless, in the hands of such an advocate, yet must it, I am 
persuaded, be perfectly secure, before such a tribunal; 

It will be recollected that this subject came into this Congress at 
its first session, in consequence of the President's Message, and of a 
petition from the survivors of those officers of the Revolutionary 
Army, who continued in service until the close of the War. The 
petition was referred to a Select Committee, and so much of the 
President's message as related to this subject, to the Committee on 
Military Pensions. In the course of debate on the Bills respectively 
reported by these Committees, a recommitment, with instructions, 
was moved — and they were both, with instructions, recommitted : 
the result of that recommitment is the Report of the Committee on 



TRISTAM BURGE& 219 

Military Pensions, made in pursuance of those instructions, and 
stating " the number of those who served in the Revolutionary War 
for whom provision ought to be made by law, the amount necessary 
to make such provision, and the manner in which it should be made." 
This Report is now before this Committee, and a complete explana- 
tion renders it necessary to divide those for whom, according to this 
Report, provision ought to be made by law, into two classes. The 
first comprehends all the survivors of those officers who continued 
in service till the close of the war, supposed to be four hundred, 
together with the surviving widows of such of those officers as have 
died since that time, supposed to be three hundred and forty -seven. 

The amount necessary to make provision for this class, is, in this 
Report, stated at one million. The manner in which this provision 
ought to be made, is therein proposed and detailed, giving to such 
officers eight hundred thousand dollars, to be distributed to them 
according to their rank and pay while in service, in a stock bearing 
a yearly interest of five per cent, payable quarterly, and redeemable 
at the pleasure of the nation. The amount of two hundred thousand 
dollars, provided for the widows of this class, is applied to their 
relief, by paying to each of them out of it, one hundred dollars a 
year, in quarterly payments. This fund is to be annually charged 
with these payments, and the balance annually credited with inter- 
est, at five per cent. It is calculated that this fund, so managed, 
will make provision for these venerable matrons during the remain- 
der of their lives. The balance, if any then remain, will fall to the 
Treasury of the United States. 

The second class comprehends all the survivors of those who, in 
the Revolutionary war, were engaged in the land or naval service 
of the United States during the continued term of nine months or 
upwards, being regular troops, either of, or not of the line, 
and not being pensioners of the United States, or of any one of 
them. It also comprehends all the surviving widows of such as 
served in manner as aforesaid, and who were also not on any roll of 
pensioners. 

The number of men of this class, for whom provision ought to be 
made by law, is stated by the Report, and stated on the authority 
of facts drawn from the Department of War. The number of the 
Army now alive, (not including the officers of the first class,) is not 
more than eighteen thousand five hundred ; of these, five hundred. 



220 SPEECHES OF 

are regular troops, not of the line, and served from one to three 
years. On the Continental establishment are fifteen hundred who 
served nine months or upwards ; two thousand who served one year 
or upwards ; three thousand who served two years or upwards ; 
and eleven thousand five hundred who served three years or upwards. 
The number now on the pension list is twelve thousand nine hundred 
and eighty-five. The number, therefore, on the list of pensioners, 
who served in the Revolutionary war, of this class, for whom pro- 
vision ought to be made by law, is five thousand five hundred and 
fifteen. It is stated in the Report, and the statement is made from 
calculations, that the number of widows of this class is about four 
thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine. 

The amount necessary to make provision for this class, is, in the 
Report, stated at two millions of dollars. The manner of making 
this provision, is similar to the manner of making that for those of 
the other class. It consists in creating one million two hundred 
thousand dollars of five per cent, stocks, and distributing them ac- 
cording to rank and duration of time in service, to this last remnant 
of the Revolutionary army ; and, in appropriating eight hundred 
thousand dollars to the creation of a fund, out of which to pay annu- 
ities of thirty dollars each to the surviving widows, of such of this 
class of the army as have now passed beyond the reach of national 
munificence. 

You therefore have, Sir, in this Report, according to the in- 
structions, the probable number of those who ought to be provided 
for by law ; the amount of that provision, and the manner of 
making it. 

The reasons inducing your Committee to make this Report, 
involve many considerations. This Committee had in view the 
character of the army ; the nature of their service ; their compen- 
sation. 

It may, by some, be deemed a waste of time to speak of the 
character of an army which fills so large a space in the history of 
the last century. It is not so considered by those who wish to 
place the whole of this subject under one view, and to make one 
more attempt to redeem their country from any imputation of 
injustice or illiberality towards this army. Besides, it was not 
forgotten that in this House it had been said, the resolutions for 
enlarged pay, and pensions for life, were extorted from Congress 



TR1STAM BURGES. 221 

by a spirit of mutiny in the army, and made merely to appease 
that spirit, and save the country from its consequences. Although 
all who know the facts, must know that none of the relations of veri- 
similitude exist between those facts and these assertions ; yet, be- 
cause what we are doing to-day will become part of the history of 
that army and of our country, I would not permit that history to 
pass into the hands of the children of future generations, with one 
page where such assertions found, for one moment, shelter under 
silence, or stood an instant unrefuted by the recorded truth. The 
character of this army, Sir, has stood unimpeached, while the 
greatest men on earth have been calumniated. That " slander 
which doth belie all corners of the world," had not belied this army. 
General Washington, in his letter to Congress, dated March 18th, 
1783, gives this high testimonial to their glorious character : " I 
am," says this illustrious man, " pleading the cause of an army 
which has done and suffered more than ever any other army did, 
in the defence of the rights and liberties of human nature." 

Permit me to adduce one other testimonial. When independence 
was achieved, and peace ascertained ; and when the friends of 
freedom, and of man, were, in both the old and new world, anx- 
iously looking on the American Congress, to see in what manner 
they would close the great action of war, which, for eight years, 
had brought upon the stage the most illustrious characters on earth, 
that Congress did, on the 18th day of October, 1783, by their reso- 
lution of that date, proclaim a thanksgiving to Almighty God for 
the gracious and abundant manifestations of his Divine Providence, 
in favor of our country, and on the same day, that Congress did also 
make one other Proclamation ; a small part of which I beg permis- 
sion to read : 

"By the United States in Congress assembled. 

" PROCLAMATION. 

" Whereas, in the progress of an arduous and difficult war, the 
armies of the United States of America have eminently displayed 
every military and patriotic virtue, and are not less to be applaud- 
ed for their fortitude and magnanimity in the most trying scenes of 
distress, than for a series of heroic and illustrious achievements, 
which exalt them to a high rank among the most zealous and suc- 
cessful defenders of the rights and liberties of mankind : And where- 



222 SPEECHES OF 

as, by the blessing of Divine Providence on our cause and our arms 
the glorious period is arrived when our national independence and 
sovereignty are established, and we enjoy the prospect of a perma- 
nent and honorable peace : We, therefore, the United States in 
Congress assembled, thus impressed with a lively sense of the dis- 
tinguished merit and good conduct of the said armies, do give them 
the thanks of their country, for their long, eminent, and faithful 
services." 

Your Committee were, therefore, fully satisfied, that this Congress 
ought to entertain, and do, and will entertain, the same opinion of 
the exalted character of that army, which was entertained by the 
Continental Congress of 1783. 

The nature of their services was considered. This was in a 
contest, where success alone could, in the annals of the nation, give 
it the name of honorable warfare. Defeat would have marked this 
glorious controversy of arms with the name of rebellion. The 
benefits of success, we know, have been equally shared by the 
whole People ; but the evils of defeat would have fallen, with dis- 
criminating severity, on this army. Some few others, doubtless, 
would have been made to drink with them the overflowing wrath 
of incensed majesty. He who advised and supported, and he who 
dictated, the Declaration of Independence, would, in this imperial 
sacrifice, have been mingled with those who marched out into the 
field in defence of it. 

With a few such exceptions, peaceable people would, though 
pillaged by confiscation, have been left alive ; but those taken in 
arms, from the boy who blew a fife, to him " who was first in war," 
would have been led out to slaughter. It has been said, that our 
merciful enemy would have only decimated the soldiers ; and been 
satisfied with dealing death to every tenth man. The officers could 
look for no such mercy ; they had nothing but death to expect. 
Indeed, that rebellion, which then blazed, over all the colonies, must 
have been extinguished ; and it would have been extinguished in 
the blood of this army. These perils were peculiar to this service ; 
and distinguished it from that of all other armies. The nature of 
this service had other peculiarities. No soldier, when he entered 
the army, feared that he would ever, in camp, want food ; but wo 
find, so great was the pressure of real famine, that Congress were 
compelled to place large districts of country under military exac- 



TRISTAM B URGES. 223 

tion. The army were often without bread ; often without meat ; 
sometimes without either. In what other service have officers been 
compelled to keep their quarters, by mere want of clothes to appear 
with decency, on parade ? This fact, the Commander-in-Chief 
announced to Congress, August 20, 1780. 

Other armies, we know, have made winter campaigns ; but did 
they, like this, perform their marches, when, on the frost, or ice, or 
snow they left the length and breadth of the bare foot, marked in 
blood ? 

It is, therefore, considered that the actual sufferings, privations, 
and perils of this service, did mark it with a peculiar character ; and 
have, and will, hereafter, in all history, eminently entitle those who 
sustained it, to the distinguishing name of " A Patriot Army. n 

The compensation made to this Army, for these services, requires 
more particular consideration. 

It will be recollected, that, at the commencement of the war, the 
gold and silver medium of circulation was, in quantity, unequal to 
the trade of the colonies. Several of them had then, already, 
attempted to relieve the scarcity of currency, by emissions of paper 
money. This soon depreciated in value ; because the holders of it 
could not, at their pleasure, exchange it for gold and silver. This 
depreciation brought back the scarcity ; and new emissions only 
renewed the evil. The trade of the country was, as it related to 
Great Britain, colonial ; and, being confined to the mother country, 
brought back to the colonies very little of the precious metals. 
When an Army of thirty thousand men was raised, and to be 
clothed, armed, fed, and paid, these things, together with all other 
auxiliary articles of expenditure, called at once for an additional 
circulating medium. In a country without mines, comparatively 
without commerce, without banks, or the means of sustaining such 
institutions, the Government had no resource but in paper money. 
Accordingly, we find that Congress immediately resorted to this 
expedient. On the 22d of June, 1775, they resolved on the emis- 
sion of two millions of dollars, in bills of credit — November 29th, 

1775, they resolved to emit three millions of dollars — February 21st, 

1776, they made four millions of dollars — May 22d, five millions of 
dollars ; and, on the same day, five millions of dollars more — Au- 
gust 13th, five millions of dollars — December 28th, five millions of 
dollars — February 26th, 1777, five millions of dollars — May 20th, 



224 SPEECHES OF 

five millions of dollars — August 1st, one million of dollars — Novem- 
ber 17th, one million of dollars — December 3d, one million of dol- 
lars — February 17th, 1778, two millions of dollars — March 5th, 
two millions of dollars — April 4th, one million of dollars — April 
11th, five millions of dollars — April 20th, five millions of dollars — 
May 22d, five millions of dollars — June 20th, five millions of dollars 
— July 30th, five millions of dollars — September 5th, five millions 
of dollars — September 27th, ten millions of dollars — November 4th, 
ten millions of dollars — January 14th, 1779, fifty millions of dollars, 
ten millions of which were to redeem, and take out of circulation, 
the two emissions, of May 20th, 1777, and April 11th, 1778, for 
five millions of dollars each — February 3d, were ordered five mil- 
lions of dollars — April 2d, five millions, one hundred and sixty 
thousand dollars — May 5th, ten millions of dollars — June 4th, ten 
millions of dollars — July 17th, fifteen millions, two hundred and 
eighty thousand dollars — September 19th, fifteen millions, two hun- 
dred and sixty thousand dollars — October 16th, five millions of dol- 
lars — November 17th, ten millions, fifty thousand, five hundred 
dollars — November 29th, ten millions, one hundred and forty thou- 
sand dollars — making more than two hundred millions of dollars. 

Thus, Sir, from June 22d, 1775, to November 29th, 1779, the 
short term of fifty-five months, two hundred millions of dollars were 
added to the circulating medium of a country, which had not funds 
to redeem a single dollar of it. 

Miserable was the condition of the soldier, who contracted to 
render service, under such a state of public currency. This was 
continually depreciating ; the value every moment lessening, like 
the handful of sand in the top of the hour-glass. The contract of 
the soldier continued, at the same monthly pay, for nine months, for 
one year, for two years, for three years, or for during the war. 
Other contractors might demand prompt pay ; might refuse to 
fulfil ; and leave the other party to look for damages in a common 
law tribunal. The soldier was chained down to the stake, by the 
iron rules of martial law, and compelled to fight out the whole 
course, to the last hour of his contract. Who, then, dares to hazard 
his character for soundness of mind, if he have any such character, 
by saying that the soldier who aided his country by service, and 
the citizen who aided her by capital, suffered equally by depre- 
ciation ? 



TRISTAM BURGES. 225 

Besides, those citizen-capitalists, who hovered about the Army 
and the Cabinet, for the purpose of dealing with those who were 
carrying on the war, had a very good knowledge of the course of 
depreciation, and could calculate the waning of a dollar with as 
much accuracy as Copernicus ever could that of the moon. They 
were never without their price-current — a kind of almanac of depre- 
ciation, showing all the phases of Continental money, and fitted to 
every day of the week, month, and year, while that singular phe- 
nomenon was above the commercial horizon. These men could, 
without prophecy, tell where it would appear, at the end of thirty, 
sixty, or ninety days ; and, profiting of this knowledge, in making 
contracts, they were at all times an overmatch for the statesman or 
the soldier. These last, indeed, were utterly unimbued with this 
kind of science, and seemed neither to know or to care for any 
thing but to fight their country's battles, and to achieve her inde- 
pendence and glory. 

It has been said that Congress, to the Army, made up this depre- 
ciation. This, though in some degree true, is, nevertheless, very 
far from being, in all respects, the fact. On the 10th of April, 
1780, that body did resolve, that, so soon as possessed of sufficient 
documents, they would establish a general rule for making up 
depreciation ; but they then, in express terms, excluded from the 
benefit of this Resolution all the Army, except such as had served 
three years, or were then in service, or should serve three years, 
or during the war, or were engaged so to serve. On the 28th of 
June, 1780, Congress resolved that Continental money had, on the 
1st March, 1778, depreciated to one dollar and seventy-five for one 
dollar ; on the 1st of September, 1778, to four dollars for one dollar ; 
on the 1st of March, 1779, to ten dollars for one dollar ; on the 1st 
of September, 1779, to eighteen dollars for one dollar ; and on the 
18th March, 1780, to forty dollars for one dollar. This scale was 
altogether arbitrary ; not calculated by the price-current of actual 
depreciation, but graduated, from period to period, by the principles 
of geometrical proportion. It was, in practice, after the war, 
extended to the Army, and so extended as to cover all the exclu- 
sions created by the resolution of April 10th, 1780, excepting only 
the loss by depreciation sustained before six months prior to March, 
1778. It is seen, that Congress resolved that Continental money 
was at that time nearly two for one. It did not fall to that point on 

E* 



226 SPEECHES OF 

that day. It had been gradually sinking to it. Indeed, it was very 
ittle less than four for one at that period of the war. How could it 
be otherwise ? Almost sixty millions of paper were then already 
thrown into circulation. Had that amount in gold and silver been 
spread over the Colonies, in the then present state of things, it must 
have depreciated to nearly one-fourth part of its value, unless it had 
been hoarded, or melted down, or sold out of the country. Neither 
of these accidents could have happened to this paper money. No 
man would hoard it : for it was the lighted torch of the play, and 
pushed from hand to hand, because the last holder was in continual 
fear of being saddled with the loss. It could be used for nothing 
else. It was fit for nothing but money, and miserably unfit for that. 
It could not be sent out of the country ; for a ne exeat regnum was 
printed on the face of it. In Paris, Dr. Franklin might have formed 
some sheets of it into paper kites, and thereby have lured fire from 
the clouds, but the whole two hundred millions would not, in a single 
city of Europe, have purchased for him a solitary match to light his 
candle. 

Whatever that depreciation was, and it must have been great, it 
was all lost to the officers and soldiers of the Army ; for no scale of 
depreciation was ever extended so far back as to cover this descrip- 
tion of loss, sustained during this period of the war. 

The movements of this depreciation, after March 18th, 1780, 
Congress did not attempt to measure. They did, indeed, on that 
day, take an observation on the sinking value of that currency, 
and then resolved that it was thirty-nine fortieths below par ; or, in 
other words, that one Continental dollar was worth two and a half 
cents in hard money, and still, as they then say, was sinking. Sir, 
to this hour it might have been sinking, had it not fallen below the 
level of circulation ; and been redeemed from that degraded condi- 
tion, at one hundred for one, by the operations of the funding system. 
So that the whole two hundred millions actually cost the Govern- 
ment but two millions. By a Resolution of that same 18th of 
March, 1780, Congress made one attempt more to give some value 
to some portion of this currency, by buying up and burning other 
parts of it. This was to be effected by a new emission of paper 
bills, bearing interest at six per cent, redeemable in six years, in 
specie, made by the individual States, and endorsed by the United 
States. This emission was called, at the Treasury Board, indents ; 



TRISTAM BURGES. 227 

at the Army, " the forty for one money ;" because, for some time, 
the Army was paid by giving them one dollar of this money in lieu 
of forty of the old Continental. In the trading market of the 
country it passed dollar for dollar with all former emissions ; for 
this last child of financial necessity had the family disease, and soon 
died of depreciation, like all its elder brothers. 

This summer of 1780 was emphatically the season of peril to 
our National Independence. Congress had, with their means, done 
more than any other Government had ever effected with the same 
means. They had sustained the war five years with almost nothing 
but paper money — " the Army" paid, what they were paid, clothed, 
and fed on this, " had done and suffered more than any other Army 
ever did, in defence of the rights and liberties of human nature." 
The South was reduced to British dominion ; Lincoln captured at 
Charleston ; and Gates vanquished at Camden ; the key of the 
North had been sold, and was, by treachery, almost delivered into 
the hands of the enemy ; the value of the national currency had 
vanished. From necessity, this had been strewn over the country, 
thick as autumnal leaves, and like those leaves, it was then value- 
less. Congress had no resources ; they could not " coin their hearts 
and drop their blood for drachmas ;" else had the nation possessed 
a fund " richer than Plutus' mine." What could they do ? Give 
up the contest ? Pass under the yoke ? What ! when so many 
fields had been won ? No, these were not the men to yield in a 
question of right. They knew that success would amply remuner- 
ate all it might cost ; that the States had ability to bear them out ; 
that they had the power to pledge this ability to the Army ; and 
they believed that the good faith of the People would not fail to 
redeem that pledge. With these views, and resolved to win or lose 
all, Congress, in the autumn of that year, re-organized the Army, 
under advice of the Commander-in-Chief. The promises, therefore, 
made to the soldiers were reiterated, and they were assured that 
each man, who enlisted and served during the war, should re- 
ceive all the arrears of his pay, and eighty real dollars in addition. 
Congress did, on the 21st of October of that memorable year, 1780, 
by their Resolution of that date, promise each officer who should 
continue in the service till the end of the war, not only the full pay 
which should then be due to him, but also half pay during the re- 
mainder of his life. These promises were made and given, not to 



228 speeches of 

quiet a mutinous army, as was asserted at the last session ; but be- 
cause Congress had, literally, nothing but promises to give. Nor 
let any one say that such promises were of greater value than the 
service to be performed. They had a singular peculiarity ; not 
that Congress had no funds wherewith to fulfil them ; not that each 
of the States, and the present United States, and all the People of 
them, of the present, and all future generations, are not bound by 
them, until performed ; no — not that or that ; but because these 
promises could never have been performed, unless the army had 
been victorious. It was but like saying to some master of the 
chace, if you will hunt the lion, and can subdue and flay the royal 
beast, we promise you some portion of his skin ; but if you fail, and 
are yourself overcome in the battle, we cannot secure the safety of 
your own. 

These promises have been much under consideration. Your 
attention is first requested to the promise of half-pay for life, by the 
resolution of October 21, 1780, made to the officers who should 
serve till the close of the war. Has this promise ever been per- 
formed ? It has not been pretended that the terms of it have ever 
been executed. These officers have never received half-pay — had 
they received it, each one of them, now alive, would have received, 
without interest, ten thousand, three hundred and twenty dollars, as 
it is stated by a Report from the Treasury Department, and with 
simple interest more than seventeen thousand dollars. 

Has this contract been discharged by paying an equivalent ? It 
is asserted that nothing but the full payment of a full equivalent 
could, or ever can, discharge this contract, either in a forum of law, 
equity, or good conscience. The Courts of law and technical 
equity are never open to questions of justice, for the citizen, against 
the Sovereign. Against that august personage the humble individ- 
ual can institute no action. The forum of conscience, however, is 
open to all ; and there the powerless individual may, even-handed, 
litigate with the potent Sovereign. Nor hath he a weary way to 
travel in search of this justice : for the legislator who instituted this 
tribunal, transcends the merit of him who, it is said, brought justice 
to every man's door. He has brought her to every man's bosom. 
It is in this tribunal that this question has been tried ; and will again 
be tried by every succeeding generation, who may read the story 
of our Revolutionary war. The record of these decisions will be 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 229 

placed in the safe-keeping of the literature of the current age, and 
will endure so long as letters and our history shall endure. 

Have then these men received an equivalent ? In all exchanges, 
the equivalent is the fair market value of the things exchanged. 
He who exchanges his goods for the fair market value of them, 
either in money, or in other goods at the fair market value, receives 
an equivalent for them. He who receives less, does not receive an 
equivalent. At the close of the war, each officer who had served 
to that time was the owner of one annuity for his own life, equal in 
value to half his yearly pay. It is agreed that these officers were 
then, on an average, thirty years of age. What was the then pre- 
sent value of these annuities ? The answer to this question involves 
the probability of the continuance of human life, according to the 
rules by experience established, for ascertaining that probable con- 
tinuance. By these, it is stated that a person at thirty, will proba- 
bly live thirty-two years. The present value of annuities for such 
lives is such a sum as, if placed out at compound interest, will, in 
thirty -two years, amount to a sum equal to all the yearly amounts 
of such annuities, with compound interest on each of them after 
they come in. According to these principles, such annuities were, 
on the 22d day of March, 1783, worth 14.084 years' purchase, or 
fourteen years and a fraction more than one month. They were, 
therefore, worth 7.042 years, or seven years and a fraction more 
than half a month's full pay. This they would have brought in 
any commercial city of Europe — in London, Paris, or Amsterdam. 
Taking the half-pay of a captain as the average, and that at twenty 
dollars per month, all these annuities at this price amounted to eight 
million, three hundred and eighty-two thousand, seven hundred and 
ninety-six dollars, and eighty cents. We may, I think, rely on this 
fact, fearless of contradiction. He who has this day 2.480 such 
annuities, on such lives, for sale in London, may, before the close 
of the Stock Exchange, receive his gold and silver for them at that 
price. At that price ? At more than that price ; because the 
purchaser would thereby place out, at six per cent, funds which, in 
that market, command little, if any thing, more than three. I trust 
no one will attempt to reduce the value of these annuities, by saying 
that the credit of the United States was low, and therefore their 
paper would have been "undervalued in the commercial world. This 
would be a sound argument in Wall-street ; but it is a most un- 



230 SPEECHES OF 

sound and ungracious one on the floor of this House. No man who 
owes ten thousand dollars can say he owes but five thousand, and 
ought to pay but five thousand, because his notes are in market 
fifty per cent, below par. It should be remembered that the sove- 
reign who, when poor, enacts a law that his creditors shall give up 
their notes against him, upon receiving payment of a part only of 
the amount, is, in the forum of conscience, bound by every principle 
of justice to pay the balance, with interest, whenever of sufficient 
ability. It will be recorded in the annals of our country, that, if 
the United States were poor in 1783, they were rich in 1827. 

I repeat it, therefore, that this very meritorious class of officers, 
being in number two thousand four hundred and eighty, were, at the 
close of the war, entitled to receive, as an equivalent for their half pay 
for life, eight millions three hundred and eighty. two thousand seven 
hundred and ninety-six dollars and eighty cents, in money, or in such 
securities as would then, and until paid off, produce six per cent, per an- 
num. What did they receive ? Congress, on the 22d of March, 1783, 
resolved to give them, in lieu of their half pay for life, five years full 
pay, in money ; or such security as should produce a yearly interest 
of six per cent. This Resolution gave them ten years' purchase, for 
annuities worth, in the market of the whole monied world, fourteen 
years and one month's purchase. It gave each individual two 
thousand four hundred dollars, when he was entitled to receive three 
thousand three hundred and eighty dollars sixteen cents. It gave 
the whole corps five million nine hundred fifty-three thousand dol- 
lars, when they were entitled to receive eight millions three hundred 
and eighty thousand seven hundred and ninety-six dollars eighty 
cents. There was, therefore, a difference of two million four hun- 
dred and twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and six dollars eighty 
cents, between the value of the thing sold, and the amount received ; 
between the equivalent and the article exchanged for it. 

In answer to all this, it is alleged, that these officers consented to 
receive five years' full pay in lieu of their half pay for life, and in 
full discharge of all claims for it. This allegation might be 
answered, by denying it to be a fact : for the truth is, that it never 
was a fact. The Resolution of Congress, of March 22, 1783, 
required this consent to be made by the different lines of the Army, 
but expressly prohibited each individual officer from making consent 
in his own case. If the United States owe each individual of this 



TRISTAM BURGES. 231 

city five hundred dollars, could the Corporation come together, and, 
by vote, efficiently declare that these creditors shall receive three 
hundred dollars each in full discharge of the five hundred ? The 
thing is too absurd to be named. Besides, the Resolution had this 
express precedent condition in it — " that this consent should, by the 
Commander-in-Chief, be signified to Congress, in two months, for the 
Northern, and, by the Commander of it, in six, for the Southern 
Army." Now, the Commander-in-Chief never signified to Con- 
gress any one fact concerning this consent. Concerning the 
Southern Army, no such consent was ever, by any one, signified to 
Congress ; nor concerning the Northern Army, till October 31, 
1783 — more than six months after the time had elapsed for giving 
such notice. Nor did Congress then, or ever after, resolve, that 
they would so pay these officers, nor that the United States were 
liable so to pay them ; nor that they would provide funds for so 
paying of them ; nor that they would give them security for this 
payment ; nor did they ever give them such security ; nor authorize 
any person whatever to give it to them. Mr. John Pearce, Commis- 
sioner of the Paymaster General, thought himself authorized to send, 
and did send, to each of them, a certificate, that so much was paya- 
ble to him, or bearer ; but for what consideration, or when payable, 
or in what currency, was left utterly blank. These certificates 
were merely a new emission of paper money, and differed in nothing 
from the old Continental bills, only that these last wanted on the 
face of them, that glittering feature of the first, which indicated that 
they were payable in " Spanish Milled Dollars." 

All these things, however, I pass over without comment ; because 
there are arguments, if possible, more conclusive, and lying in a 
narrower compass. Let it, Sir, be granted that each of these offi- 
cers did, viva voce, on the floor of Congress, say to that body — " I 
will receive five years* full pay, in full discharge of my half pay for 
life ; provided the same be paid to me in gold and silver, or secured 
to me, that I can receive six per cent, interest upon it annually." 
This proposition implies that this payment should be made, or this 
security given, in some reasonable time. This, however, I give up ; 
and if it can be proved that the United States ever either paid the 
money, or gave such security, I will agree that the contract has 
been, on their part, performed. 



232 SPEECHES OF 

It will not be pretended that the money was ever paid. Let all 
question, therefore, concerning that, be laid out of the case. Was 
the security ever given ? If so, when ? By whom ? What was it 1 
Was the commutation certificate of John Pearce that security 1 Did 
that produce, to each of these officers, six per cent, per annum ? 
Why, Sir, never was a single cent of interest paid on those certifi- 
cates. It was never pretended. Had interest been regularly paid 
upon them, would they, as they did, have fallen in the market, almost 
immediately, to fifty, soon to seventy-five, and shortly after to 
eighty-seven and a half per cent, below par ? Why, Sir, these 
much injured men were, from the pressure of their affairs, many of 
them, obliged to sell their certificates for the most they would bring. 
It is probable that the whole amount of them, the whole five million 
nine hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars, never realized to those 
officers more than twenty-five cents on a dollar ; or that the whole 
amount which they all received, exceeded the sum of one million 
four hundred and eighty-three thousand two hundred and fifty 
dollars, thereby making to these officers, a loss of four million four 
hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. Was 
this, Sir, giving, in the spirit of the contract, was this giving 
security ? 

The funding system, however, did them complete justice. Here 
were they amply remunerated. This was demonstrated, as it was 
observed in a former debate, by the universal joy spread over the 
country at the adoption of this measure. Indeed, Sir, justice, like 
charity, may sometimes come a day too late ; and truly, Sir, unless 
we do whatever we may do on this question, quickly, our justice will, 
I fear, come too late ; and we shall be called to settle this account 
with these men before another tribunal — whither, I feel, that they 
and we are all rapidly hastening. 

What did the funding system do for these men ? For those of 
them who had been enabled to live without means ; to hold their 
commutation certificates, and hold their breath for seven years ? 
Take the answer, Sir, from the Treasury Department, sent at our 
request to this House by the President, during the last session of 
Congress. Taking, as heretofore, the average value of those certifi- 
cates to be two thousand four hundred dollars, a certificate was, 
on the 1st of January, 1791, issued to the holder for two-thirds, that 
is, for one thousand six hundred dollars ; on this the interest up to 



T R I S T A M BURGE S. 



233 



December 31st, 1825, amounts to three thousand three hundred and 
sixty dollars. For one-third, or eight hundred dollars, a certificate 
was issued, without interest, for ten years ; and the interest for the 
remaining time amounts, December 31st, 1825, to one thousand two 
hundred dollars. The interest on the original certificate, from 
November 4th, 1783, to January 1, 1791, was one thousand and 
thirty dollars eighty cents ; and for this a certificate was issued, 
bearing interest at three per cent. only. This three per cent, inter- 
est amounted, December 31st, 1825, to one thousand and eighty- 
two dollars thirty-four cents — these sums together, amount to five 
thousand six hundred and forty-two dollars thirty-four cents ; to this 
amount, add the original certificate, two thousand four hundred 
dollars, and the present value of the three per cent, stock, eight 
hundred and twenty-four dollars sixty-four cents, and the whole 
amount received by each officer, by force of the funding system, 
was, December 31, 1825, eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-six 
dollars ninety-eight cents ; and by the whole corps, allowing that 
they all retained their certificates, the whole amount was twenty-one 
million nine hundred and ninety thousand one hundred and ten dol- 
lars forty cents. If the whole certificate had been funded at 
interest, instead of deferring the interest of one third of it ; and the 
interest in arrear had been funded at six, instead of three per cent.; 
each officer would have received eleven thousand two hundred and 
ninety-three dollars thirty two cents ; and the whole corps twenty- 
eight million five thousand eight hundred and twenty-three dollars 
sixty cents. So that each officer, instead of receiving a security for 
his five years' full pay, whereby he could realize the safety of the 
principal, and six per cent, interest annually, did, in fact, by this 
system of funding, lose two thousand four hundred and twenty-six 
dollars thirty-four cents ; and the whole corps lost six million fifteen 
thousand seven hundred and thirteen dollars and twenty cents. 

If, therefore, five years' full pay had been an equivalent for the 
half-pay for life ; and if each officer had agreed to receive it as 
such, either in money, or securities producing a yearly interest of 
six per cent. ; yet, because the money was not paid, nor the secu- 
rity, yielding a yearly interst of six per cent, ever given, the contract, 
on the part of the United States, has not ever been performed. On 
the contrary, this boasted act of justice cut oft' from the claim of 
every living officer, who had retained his commutation certificate. 



234 SPE KC llEri or 

more than two thousand four hundred dollars ; and from the whole 
number, had they all been alive, and all retained their certificates, 
more than six million dollars. 

It, therefore, cannot be said, that the five years' full pay was an 
equivalent ; nor if it were, that these officers ever received it. 
Accordingly, the Committee of this House, to whom this was referred 
in 1810, reported that the half-pay for life was still due to these 
men, deducting what they had received under the funding system, 
as so much received on account. The same report was made by 
another Committee of this House in 1819. A Select Committee, to 
whom, at the last Session, was referred the last petition of the sur- 
vivors of those officers, did, in compliance with the prayer of that 
petition, report that a definite sum should be distributed among 
them. It is in consequence of this petition, and this report, that the 
last Committee to whom this subject was referred, felt themselves 
authorized to consider the questions of commutation and funding as 
if closed ; and to compensate these men, by giving back to them 
some portion of the money saved to the nation by the several very 
economical negotiations heretofore made with them. 

If, therefore, passing over all questions concerning the justice of 
the commutation contract, and the manner of fulfilling it, either by 
the certificates themselves* or the method of funding them, can it be 
said that we are not bound by a high and indissoluble obligation, to 
give back to them some portion of what they have lost, and the 
nation has saved 1 Let us make no account of the loss of these 
men, by the sale of their commutation certificates, both because the 
nation saved nothing directly by that loss, and because, if these men 
had sold these certificates, they could sustain no loss by the manner 
of funding them, since this loss was sustained by the purchasers. 
But, because the nation saved by the manner of funding, and the 
officers lost thereby an equal amount, or a much greater amount, 
by having sold them before, it is but fair to bring this loss and 
saving into the account. You have, Sir, been told, by the Report 
from the Treasury Department, that, by the manner of funding those 
commutation certificates, each officer, on an average, lost two thou- 
sand four hundred and twenty -six dollars thirty-four cents. This 
sum the nation saved, and have now in the coffers of their Treasury. 
Multiplied by the number of officers probably alive, this sum 
amounts to more than this Bill proposes to give them. It is stated 



T RISTAM BURGES. 235 

in the Report, that, of these men, there are probably four hundred 
alive. This estimate was received from the Department of War. 
The Select Committee had, from calculations on the probable con- 
tinuance of life peculiar to the city of London, estimated the number 
at three hundred and forty-seven, and the Committee on Military 
Pensions, at four hundred and forty-five. This last estimate was 
made from the experience and calculations of the probable continu- 
ance of human life, in the rural parts of the island of Great Britain. 
Since the present Session of Congress, the Chairman of the last 
mentioned Committee has received returns of the number of surviv- 
ing officers of the lines of Rhode-Island and South Carolina. Con- 
sidering one of these States as the most, and the other as the least, 
propitious to human longevity ; and, making a calculation on that 
principle, it is found that the number now alive is four hundred and 
forty-four. This, doubtless, will be found the most probable num- 
ber ; and therefore, you have, Sir, in your Treasury, saved, by the 
manner of funding the commutation certificates of this number of 
men, now alive, the full sum of one million seventy-seven thousand 
two hundred and ninety-four dollars and ninety-six cents. This 
sum at least, Sir, should, by the provisions of the Bill on your table, 
have been distributed to these men. The Bill, reported by the 
Select Committee, provided for the distribution of one million dollars. 
This sum was, with great reluctance, reduced to eight hundred 
thousand dollars, and this was done at the earnest solicitation of the 
agent for those officers. This gallant gentleman stated to the 
Chairman of the Committee that the officers of the line of New- 
Jersey, had, soon after the peace, established a fund for the support 
of their widows, and, with a spirit of chivalry worthy the character 
of the officers of the Revolutionary Army, he insisted that those 
whom he represented would be better satisfied if, from the sum 
proposed to be distributed to them, the two hundred thousand dollars 
were taken to make a provisionary fund for the widows of their 
deceased brothers in arms. 

In addition to the loss and saving by funding, it has been demon- 
strated that those men also lost, and the country saved, by the 
commutation, more than two million four hundred thousand dollars, 
and that forty -three years ago.. This was then nearly one thousand 
dollars to each of those officers, and with simple interest, now 
amounts to two thousand five hundred and twenty-five dollars, and 



236 



SPEECHES OF 



for the whole of these men now before you, to one million one 
hundred and thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars. This, Sir, 
was lost to them by selling, and saved to the nation by buying, 
their half-pay for life at less than a fair equivalent. Is it possible, 
Sir, with these facts on our records, that we can outrage the char- 
acter of the nation, by refusing to make provision for these men, 
when we have been so richly enabled to do it, by savings heretofore 
made out of the very price of their own proper toils and perils ? 

The provision made in this Bill for the relief of the widows of 
deceased officers, is made according to the spirit of the pension 
system of the United States, and was introduced, not only on account 
of its justice, but to satisfy the pressing demands of this House for 
such a provision. If we look to the savings made by the nation 
from the services of their deceased husbands, we shall find them as 
great, or nearly as great, as those made from the services of such 
officers as are now alive. We can, therefore, make this provision 
without sustaining any real loss. The character of these women 
places them peculiarly under the patronage of Government. Not 
that their husbands were called to an eight year's absence ; not that 
they suffered the desolation of youthful widowhood ; not that they 
were, from necessity, scantily provided for at home. No, no. 
Hunger and cold were things of mere " corporal sufferance ;" and 
those of our race, whom God made to soothe our pains, have no 
tongue to complain of their own. I need not, to borrow the lan- 
guage of the Report — I need not " tell gallant men what a soldier's 
wife suffers in the day of battle." It is, indeed, the inexpressible 
anguish of breathless apprehension bringing to them, as it brought 
to the daughter of the stern Cato, the distant din of encounter. The 
blaze, the blood, the groan, the shout, rush on their senses ; not 
indeed by the material organ, but through the magnifying medium 
of imagination. Add to this the suspense, the hope, the fear, the 
wish to know, the dread to hear the tremendous result. These, 
these, Sir, are the sufferings which have consecrated the character 
of these women, nor do I believe one gentleman in this Hall can, 
with justice to his understanding or his feelings, lift up his voice 
against making provision for them. 

For the other class of those who served in the Revolutionary 
War, the Committee have reported that provision ought to be made 
by law. Here, Sir, is that venerable fragment of the regular Con- 



TRISTAM B URGES. 237 

tinental Army, for whom their country has hitherto done nothing. 
Permit me, Sir, in a few words, to lay before you the reasons 
inducing the Committee to place these men in the number of those 
for whom provision ought to be made by law. 

The war may be divided into two periods ; the one previous to 
1780, the other subsequent to that year. In the first period, the 
Army was paid entirely in Continental money. In the first summer 
of the last period, they were, partially, paid in the forty for one 
money ; but, after that time, they were not paid at all until the close 
of the war. Congress, by requisitions for specific articles, made on 
the several States, were enabled in some sort to clothe and feed the 
Army ; but to pay them, was beyond their power ; for, literally 
speaking, " Silver and Gold they had none ;" and the paper medium 
of the country had sunk below the current of circulation. At the 
end of the war, those soldiers who continued in service until that 
time, were entitled to receive eighty dollars each, as a bounty. 
Did they receive the money ? No ; they received the final settle- 
ment certificate of John Pearce. They were entitled to receive the 
arrears of their wages. Did they receive the money ? No ; they 
received the final settlement certificate of John Pearce. Those of 
them who had been in both periods of the war, after March 1st, 
1778, were entitled to receive their depreciation. Did they receive 
the money for this ? No ; they received the final settlement cer- 
tificate of John Pearce. Those officers and soldiers who had served 
in either period of the war, for one, two, or three years, were enti- 
tled to receive the arrears of their pay, and to be compensated for 
their depreciation. Did they receive the money ? No, Sir ; they 
also received the final settlement certificate of John Pearce. One 
class of the Army was not so paid. The nine months' men, who 
served anterior to the time reached by the scale of depreciation, 
received nothing for this loss upon their wages. Being probably 
thought beyond the reach of remedy, this catholicon was not admin- 
istered to them ; and they did not, for their depreciation, receive 
even the final settlement certificate of John Pearce. 

Why, Sir, this Mr. John Pearce, Commissioner of the Paymaster 
General, was the Nicholas Biddle, the Abraham Newland of the 
Government ; and issued more millions of paper in one year than, 
I had almost said, either the Bank of England or of the United 
States ever did, in the same length of time. Different, indeed, was 



238 SPEECHES OF 

this emission of paper money from the bills of those Banks. Such 
bills command their nominal amount, in silver or gold ; but these 
forlorn certificates were, by thousands and thousands of those unfor- 
tunate soldiers, carried into the market, and sold at from twenty-five 
to twelve and a-half cents on the dollar. 

Now, Sir, what did these men lose, what did this nation save, by 
this mode of settlement with them ? I will not detain the committee 
with specific calculations ; each gentleman can make them for him- 
self. Neither do I request any one to bring into the account, any 
item for loss, by these officers and soldiers, where the nation did not 
make a correspondent saving. Let us, therefore, omit to mention 
the millions lost by selling final settlement certificates at twelve and 
a-half cents on the dollar. Did not these men lose, and did not the 
nation save, by postponing payment of the army till the close of the 
war ? Did not they lose, and did not the nation save, by paying no 
depreciation at all for a portion of the time, and by delaying pay- 
ment of the remainder until November 4th, 1783 1 After the ac- 
count was all summed up, and the balance struck, did not they lose, 
did not the nation save, by leaving this balance unpaid for more 
than seven years, and until January 1st, 1791 ? What would any 
individual, holding one hundred and owing forty-two millions of dol- 
lars, have given for such a letter of license from his creditors for 
seven years ? What did the Government realize by this postpone- 
ment ? For they really had this more than seven years' license of 
delay. Why, Sir, by retaining in their own hands the forty -two 
millions of their creditors' money, they left the People of the United 
States better enabled thereby to give life and motion to every spe- 
cies of industry, then languishing under the effects of protracted and 
exhausting war ; and thus to lay a foundation for the acquisition of 
that individual and national wealth, which now so eminently distin- 
guishes our country. Nor should it be forgotten, that these very 
men now before you, were, by this delay, deprived of that pay 
which they had so doubly earned ; and thereby lost that capital 
which might have enabled them to participate in that acquisition. 
This, Sir, was " that tide in the affairs of these men, which," because 
they were by their country thus not permitted to " take it at the 
flood, has left them all their lives in shallows and in misery." 

I pray of you, Sir, to look back, once more, with me, to that 
disastrous, that glorious era of our country, the first period of the 



T R I S T A M BURGES. 



239 



war, from 1775 to 1780. It has been seen, that this war was, for 
five years, supported by continental money ; and that the two hun- 
dred millions of that currency, by which this was effected, were 
finally redeemed by Government for two millions of dollars. Most 
of the loans, both foreign and domestic, were created subse- 
quent to this time ; the expenses to individual States for spe- 
cific supplies, grew up mostly after this period ; and all depre- 
ciation paid before that year, was paid out of the great current mass 
of continental money. The great amount of State advances, the 
final balances for surplus State supplies ; the loans, foreign and do- 
mestic, and the allowances afterwards made for depreciation, all 
belong more properly to the expenditures of the last period of the 
war. This two hundred million of continental money finally re- 
deemed by Government for two millions of. dollars, was, therefore, 
the great moving medium, and almost the whole expense of that 
war for five years. Such a war, for such a duration, for such a 
sum ! 

What did the war of 1812 cost this country? This war, Sir, 
cost you, reckoning loans, and the consumption of current revenue, 
and military and naval munitions then in possession, and claims for 
losses and services already made and allowed to States and individ- 
uals ; this war, I say, Sir, cost you in three years not less than one 
hundred and twenty millions of dollars. In this war you paid your 
armies and navies in silver and gold ; in that you paid them in 
continental money. Can we, Sir, in comparing the expenses of 
these two wars, resist the conclusion that millions were saved to the 
Government by the use of that evanescent medium wherewith the 
Revolutionary armies were paid ? 

All these losses and savings were crowned and completed by the 
final manner of funding all the agreed balances, allowed to be due 
to these officers and soldiers : for the weight of the funding system 
fell also upon them. They received for all arrears of interest no 
other payment than the amount in a three per cent, stock ; and for 
one-third of the principal they received no payment at all, until the 
expiration of ten years. It has been seen that each officer, who 
served till the close of the war, lost, by this system, on his commuta- 
tion certificate alone, more than twenty-four hundred dollars. Every 
other officer and soldier of the Army, now alive, has lost in the 



240 SPEECHES OF 

same proportion ; and the nation has, from these losses, in the same 
proportion, saved. 

If, then, we consider what we fairly owe these men for deprecia- 
tion unpaid ; for the long delay in settling their accounts ; for the 
longer delay in paying them the ultimate balance ; and the still 
greater debt resulting from having paid them for current services 
in continental money, not in gold and silver ; and for the final dis- 
count of more than twenty-one per cent, swept off at once by the 
provisions of the funding system : If, I say, Sir, all these losses by 
them, and savings by us, are set down in the account, can we for a 
moment doubt that the nation owes them much more than this Bill 
proposes to give them ? 

If, however, after all, it should be said that the nation owes them 
nothing, because the account has long been settled and closed ; let 
it be so considered for the sake of the argument. Nevertheless, 
have not the nation made very profitable bargains out of them in 
the course of these negotiations ? Have they not saved several 
millions by this mode of managing settlements, and payment, and 
funding, with these men ? If, out of these savings, unquestionably 
great, we now make some provision for that remnant of them now 
alive, can it ever, with any justice, be said, that the nation has been 
made poorer by the Army ? 

It is presumed that the last provision of the Bill will, in its sup- 
port, require no additional reasonings. It is sustained by all the 
arguments sustaining the provisions for the widows of those officers 
who served till the close of the war. It is believed that the only 
objection to it will be found in the smallness of the sum provided for 
each individual. The Committee felt themselves circumscribed by 
the suggestions of the House, and could not presume to go beyond 
eight hundred thousand dollars ; for this fund could not have been 
intended to give to those women more than their husbands, if alive, 
would have received ; and although the widows of officers of this 
class may not receive so much, yet will it be found, upon calcula- 
tion, that each of them will, probably, receive about the same sum 
which each of the soldiers will receive. 

Those who call to mind that the husbands of these women were 
among those who, many of them, continued in the service during 
the whole war ; and who also remember that, by our various set- 
tlements with them, the nation has been saved somewhat more than 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 241 

harmless, will not surely object to giving to these aged widows a 
small yearly testimonial, that the people of this generation venerate 
that patriotism and magnanimity which, half a century ago, could 
induce women to give up their youthful joys and hopes, for the 
safety and independence of their country. 

This Bill may encounter certain specific objections. First, be- 
cause the militia who fought in the Revolutionary war are not 
placed within the provisions of it. They are not placed there be- 
cause the United States never extended the principle of any pension 
law to them ; because they never applied to Congress for relief, 
nor was their case, originally, or by the re-commitment, referred 
to any committee ; because the States, to which they belong? have 
made no demand on the nation for any relief for them ; and be- 
cause, as it is believed, the States alone are of right entitled to 
make such demand, and to receive and to distribute such relief. 

Second. Neither six months' men, nor eight months' men, are 
placed within the provisions of the Bill. They are omitted, because 
such of them as rc-inlisted, will have served nine months, and are 
provided for ; and because such as did not, were immediately paid, 
and suffered nothing by delay, very little by depreciation, or by 
the various wants, privations, and disasters, which followed the 
army in almost every subsequent portion of service. 

Third. The children of deceased officers and soldiers are not 
placed within the provisions of this Bill. They were excluded be- 
cause it is believed that, in very few instances, they could, bene- 
ficially to themselves, have been retained. For, although it may 
be perfectly just to present this bounty of the nation to the officers 
and soldiers themselves, exempted from the claims of their credit- 
ors ; yet is it much doubted, if any principle of justice would au- 
thorize Congress to pass it to their children, under this exemption. 
Without this, it is believed ihw cases exist where, after paying the 
debts of their fathers, this bounty would ever reach the children. — 
Besides, this bestowment is for personal merit ; and, therefore, pe- 
culiar and personal, to those officers and soldiers themselves. We 
cannot bring such children into this provision, until we first adopt 
into our Republican institutions the principle, that the merits of the 
father do of right descend to the son. Then may we, as the advo- 
cates of this measure require us now to do, render offices, honors, 
and emoluments, hereditary ; and, by engrafting this thrifty scion 



242 SPEECHES OF 

of aristocracy upon our own sturdy democratic stock, ensure to 
posterity an abundant crop of that kind of fruit which has so blest 
almost all other nations of the earth. 

Fourth. This Bill does not exclude from its provisions those who 
may have purchased commutation certificates. It was not forgot- 
ten that this exclusion was once adopted, but it was thought that, 
upon re-consideration, this opinion would be changed. Can it fairly 
be expected that men, now far advanced in life, and whose whole 
fortune in 1784, consisted in this kind of paper, can, at this late 
period, distinctly recollect whether, during the then next succeeding 
six vears, they ever purchased any amount of the same kind of 
paper ? Would not this be a hard rule ? Would it not lay a snare 
for the doubting? Would it not exclude many of the honest? 
Why, Sir, these officers are now all old men. The youngest of 
them told me, the last autumn, that he was sixty-eight. The oldest 
is eighty. 

There is a time, Sir, when, dimmed by age, if not by infirmities, 
the eye of recollection looks back in vain to distinguish each partic- 
ular action of youthful life. This rule will exclude all such men. 
Their doubts will be sacred. They will not take the oath, but keep 
their poverty, and their peace of conscience. Besides, when this 
paper was brought in such quantities into the market, the buying 
and selling of it became a business, and was the only source of 
subsistence of many of these men. All these must be excluded. 
In a country where so much of the medium of commerce is paper, 
passing as this did, would it not be anomalous, if the mere act of 
having purchased any species of it, should ever be followed by a 
penalty ? The United States introduced it into the market. They, 
by making it payable to bearer, made it a circulating medium ; 
and will they now punish any part of those who received it as 
such ? 

This exclusion is placed on the presumption that the buyer took 
advantage of the seller's necessity, and obtained his paper below its 
value. It was not so. The market of all the world was open to 
him : for our country was then furnished with brokers, both Jew 
and Gentile. It was not the necessity of the holder, but the utter 
insolvency of the maker, which, in the market, brought down the 
price of this paper. Would it not be remarkable legislation, if the 
United States should enact a law, punishing a particular description 



TRIBTAM BURGES. 243 

of men now, for what was the necessary effect of their own finan- 
cial arrangements forty years ago ? Besides, Sir, most of these 
purchasers were meritorious. One class of them, though they had 
no reliance on the pledges of Government, yet did they give some- 
thing for what was considered worth little or nothing, because it 
relieved the necessities of a suffering soldier. Such men were nu- 
merous. They, when these unfortunate men wanted their property, 
and could pay nothing else, received those certificates of them in 
payment, at the most they were worth. They did not purchase 
this paper to hoard and keep it, until Government should fund and 
pay it off. They did not believe that the States ever would, or 
could, do either : for some of the most enterprizing of them sold it, 
and united to build, and equip, and lade ships for distant markets ; 
while others took some share in some other less hazardous com- 
mercial adventures. Had they speculated on the necessities of the 
soldier, relying on the good faith of Government, they would have 
kept their paper, and thereby have made much more profitable 
voyages. This class of purchasers, though they labored for the 
adoption of the Constitution, yet did they meet the funding system, 
with nothing, or nearly nothing, of this paper in their possession. 
This exclusion would cut off all those officers comprehended in 
this very meritorious class of purchasers, from all share in this 
provision. 

Another class of these men did, with others, purchase, because 
they, like Washington, still held their reliance on the good faith of 
the nation. Their capital gave something like a currency to this 
paper, and something like a credit to the United States. " They 
hoped against hope." For, although no individual, no company, 
no nation, would then have guaranteed the facts, that the United 
States would ever have established this National Government, and 
ever have redeemed their National Debt, yet these men did, from 
the fullness of their faith in the justice of their country, in some de- 
gree, and to some extent, guaranty both these facts. Shall, then, 
" this faith be accounted to them for" political " righteousness ;" or 
shall this clause of exclusion mark it down to them for political 
delinquency ? 

It is, therefore, hoped, that this Bill will not be rejected, because 
it does not exclude from its provisions those who, by purchasing 
these certificates, sustained the credit of the nation, or relieved the 



244 SPEKC II BS OF 

necessities of the soldier ; or because it does exclude the militia, 
who cannot receive any relief, unless demanded, received, and 
distributed, by their own States ; nor because six and eight months' 
men receive none of this provision, since they, though very merito- 
rious, yet generally entered and left the army before the period of 
its greatest perils, losses, and sufferings ; nor because it does not 
extend the national bounty to the children of deceased officers and 
soldiers, forasmuch as this could not be done without rendering per- 
sonal merit hereditary, and thereby subverting the very foundation 
of republican virtue. 

Permit me, then, Sir, to request each gentleman of this committee 
to look at this provision for the survivors of this Army ; and then 
to look at the kind, the amount, and the manner of their payment. 
In what country or age of the world, in modern times, was ever, 
before this, such an Army kept in the field five years, at a current 
expense of little more than two millions of dollars ? Place over 
against this sum, in the fiscal accounts of the nation, the one hun- 
dred and twenty millions expended in the three years' war of 1812, 
and in the immense difference of these two sums, you will be ena- 
bled, as if aided by a glass, to catch some faint outline of those 
times, when a Revolutionary soldier fought your battles for sixty 
shillings per month, and while travelling home, paid seventy-five 
dollars for a dinner. Examine the account. A fearful balance 
will be found standing against the nation in the forum of conscience. 
Wipe it off, I pray of you, Sir, by passing the provisions of this Bill 
to our credit in that ever-during tribunal. Suffer not the impartial 
adjudications of history to be there recorded against us. You all 
must recollect the self-devotion of that young hero of Palestine, who, 
though fainting with thirst, yet refused to taste the water of his 
native spring, presented to him by three of his youthful warriors, 
because they had put their lives in their hands, and cut their way 
through the enemy's camp to obtain it. " As God liveth, it is your 
blood," exclaimed the generous chieftain. " I may not drink of 
it." This money in our Treasury is, Sir, the blood of these men. 
Give it back to them. It will not prosper in our hands. 

If, notwithstanding these things, it should be said that this account 
has been compromised with these men, and ultimately settled, let it, 
if you please, Sir, be so considered ; but do not forget the different 
results of this compromise. About the ck»e of the war, the whole 



T R ISTAM BURGE S. 



245 



national debt ; all Government had borrowed of foreigners ; all 
they had borrowed of citizens ; all the United States owed to the 
several States ; all they owed to the army, as by Madison, Hamil- 
ton, and Ellsworth, is reported to Congress, in their address to the 
States, amounted to forty-two million three hundred and seventy- 
five dollars. What would the amount have been, had you paid 
your armies in silver and gold ? What ! had you redeemed your 
two hundred millions of Continental money, hundred for hundred, in 
Spanish milled dollars ? The Government saved some portion of 
the immense difference — how ? By negotiations — with whom ? 
Those men, who, in the Cabinet, conducted our glorious Revolution, 
are worthy to be held in everlasting veneration. Let us, Sir, from 
the savings made by the economical negotiations of those clays, 
when the poverty, and not the will of the Government .consented, 
draw some fair and honorable provision for this venerable remnant 
of the Revolutionary Army ; and, attentive to that voice of national 
magnanimity, calling to us from every region of our country, make 
one redeeming effort, now, in the times of maturity and abundance, 
to soften the rigor of those transactions, which grew up under a cold 
and unpropitious influence, in the years of oppressed and parsimo- 
nious minority. 

Let us, however, give up this question to the cavils of debate, and 
allow that we owe these men nothing ; that in settlement with them, 
we saved nothing ; that we have paid them, to the full, the amount 
of their wages ; and in a manner, too, according to the literal terms 
of the contract. Sir, between such an army and such a nation, are 
there not some higher and holier feelings, than those resulting from 
the gross working-day relations of mere debt and credit ? Few 
men live now, who lived in those days, when first commenced those 
higher relations, now existing, between this army and this country ; 
few, I say, whose memory fully comprehends the stormy years of 
our Revolution, and the halcyon days of our prosperity. Indeed, 
Sir, since this provision was laid on your table, two men have left 
the world, whose illustrious lives, did, like the bright bow of Heaven, 
touch the two extremes of this varied horizon. They owed their 
glory to the darkness of its clouds ; their lustre to the brightness of 
its sunshine. Enough, however, live, who do know, that there never 
was before such an army ; such a service ; such a result. 



246 



SPEECHES OF 



Without this army our Revolution had never been achieved. 
Instead of " thus sitting ; thus consulting ;" thus, in all the pride and 
power of self-government, we had, to this hour, been the mere 
appurtenances of foreign empire ; dragging after us the weary 
chain of colonial dependence. The enterprising trade of your 
fathers was confined to the waters, and the ports of Great Britain. 
This army conquered for you the freedom of the seas and the com- 
merce of the world. They too conquered for you, the lands, from 
almost the waters of the Mexican Gulf to the head springs of the 
Mississippi ; and thus finally brought into your acquisition your 
whole present territory ; extending over the broad breast of the 
Continent, from ocean to ocean. What a wilderness of wealth ! 
What a teeming parent of populous and powerful States ! The old 
Colonies .were mere separate Colonies. The Revolution united 
their hands, and formed them into a political brotherhood. This 
army sustained that Union ; placed us on the broad basis of inde- 
pendence ; and we are, by their toils and jeopardies, now a nation, 
among the most efficient and prosperous. Does no spirit of grati- 
tude call on this nation to remember, and to relieve the survivors of 
that army, now, as they are " old and weary with service ?" I 
pray of you, Sir, let their country give them this one look of kind- 
ness — pour this one beam of gladness on the desolate twilight of 
their days. 

Does any one doubt whether the spirit of the nation will go along 
with us, in making this provision ? Why, Sir, when that venerable 
man, now standing in the canvass yonder on your wall, two years 
ago stood in his proper person on this floor, the whole nation seemed 
to spring forward to give him the hand of gratulation. Was this 
done because he was the noble descendant of a long line of illustrious 
ancestors, a warrior and a patriot in another country ? Was it not 
rather because he was a soldier of our Revolutionary army ? 
When he travelled from city to city, and the universal People went 
out to meet, to welcome, and to receive him to their abodes, was it 
not because he was a soldier of our Revolutionary army ? When, 
from State to State he moved, under one continued shout of congrat- 
ulation, it was not the great and illustrious nobleman, but the long 
remembered and deeply endeared soldier of our Revolutionary 
army, whom the People delighted to honor. At last, when he left 
our shores, carrying Avith him such testimonials as wore appropriate 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



247 



for such a nation to give, and such a man to receive, no American 
imagined, though such was the fact, that we had been doing honors 
to the most meritorious man in Europe — all men believed that it was 
but the expression of national gratitude to the soldier, the Revolu- 
tionary soldier, who had devoted his youth, his fortune, and his 
blood, in defence of our independence ! Is there no such sentiment 
now in the bosom of our nation, embracing, warmly embracing, 
these, his venerable brothers in arms ? 

At the last great national festival of Independence, the first 
jubilee of our country, why were these men, by a kind of simulta- 
neous sentiment " beating in every pulse," through the nation, called 
out to assist at the solemnities, and to partake of the joys and 
festivities of the day ? Was this done, Sir, merely to tantalize their 
hopes ? or was it done to assure them, that already the voice of the 
People had awarded to them this provision, and that they were only 
to wait until the forms of law had given efficiency to this award — 
until the recorded enactments of their Representatives in Congress 
had embodied and promulgated this great voice of the People ? 

Sir, the character of your bestowment on Lafayette depends on 
the fate of this measure. Make this provision for the remainder of 
your Revolutionary army, and this and that will forever stand on 
the page of history, as illustrious deeds of national gratitude. Send 
away these, his meritorious brothers in arms, to " beg their bread 
through realms their valor saved," and your gifts to that illustrious 
foreigner will, in the eyes of other nations, and of posterity, serve 
only to purchase for you the character of a poor and a pitiful 
ostentation. 

After all, Sir, what is this vast sum, which, if bestowed on the 
survivors of the army, may, as some anxious gentlemen have inti- 
mated, exhaust the National Treasury ? It is three millions of dol- 
lars ; three dimes a head to our whole population of the last census. 
This too, in a stock ; a legacy charged on the rich inheritance 
which, as we hope, will be transmitted by us to our children, and 
who will rejoice that we have left them something to do in memory 
of these venerable friends of their fathers. The annual interest of 
this sum, at five per cent, will amount to one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. Our very school boys would pay it. Yes, Sir ; 
they would pay it. I have a boy nine years old ; quite as much, 
and no more patriotic than the children of each gentleman in this 



248 SPEECHES OF, &c. 

] lull ; and I do believe, Sir, I could reckon up among my constitu- 
ents six hundred and ninety-nine more, the fathers of such sons, all 
middling-interest men too ; nor is it doubted that every gentleman 
of this House might, from his own district, bring into the enumera- 
tion quite as long a list. There are, Sir, of this description of boys 
in the United States, at the least, one hundred and fifty thousand. 
They have heard much, and already read something of the war and 
of the army. We give to them some small annual subsidy, more 
or less, to purchase the toys and the sports of childhood ; indeed, 
how interesting to that young age of cheap delights ! Should we, 
on the quarter-day of this little annuity, say, each of us, to our little 
sons, shall I give you all this dollar, or take out one quarter to pay 
the aged survivors of the army : what, Sir, would be the answer — 
the unprompted, simultaneous answer, and in the most animated 
note of delighted childhood, and heard, too, if such a voice could be 
so heard, from one end to the other of our country — what would it 
be ? Why, Sir, with eyes glistening with ecstacy, with imploring 
hands, and a voice hurried with eagerness, they would exclaim, 
u Give it, dear father, give it to the old soldier ; we can be very 
happy with much less play ; but they cannot live without bread," 



SPEECH ON THE APPROPRIATION BILL. 



In January, 1831, Mr. Stanberry, of Ohio, moved to amend the 
clause in the General Appropriation Bill, appropriating salaries to 
foreign ministers, by striking out the word Russia, and substituting 
forty-five for fifty-four thousand dollars. Upon this motion, Mr. 
Burges addressed the Committee, in the following 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Chairman — The present is, I believe, no unusual discussion. 
In the short term of my service in this hall, I have witnessed sitting 
after sitting of a Committee of the Whole House on the state of the 
Union, where the quantum of salary, compared with the service of 
foreign ministers, was the subject of most stirring debate. When 
has the competency of this House to move such debate been ques- 
tioned ] Never, until the present sitting of this committee. If I 
am mistaken, I ask the chairman of the committee on Foreign Re- 
lations to tell me when that question was made by the friends of 
the last administration ? The question is put to him because of his 
proximity to the executive department, and because, if he will not 
give it a candid answer, such answer can be expected from no gen- 
tleman in this hall. 

What call, then, can, by any usage, be at this time made on this 
branch of the government to throw itself at the very foot of execu- 
tive subserviency ? Do the people expect this from us ? They 
have placed the national funds at our control, but with a full confi- 
dence in our fidelity and diligence, and under no fear that we should 
unlock the treasury, unless paramount public interest call upon us 
to turn the key. We cannot do this merely because required to do 
it by cabinet ministers, or by the executive under their advise- 
ment. This House has ever claimed and exercised the right to 
deliberate, to debate, and, under a sound discretion of its own, to 
decide and determine all claims for appropriation, by whomsoever, 

H* 



250 SPEECHES OF 

or for whatsoever purpose they may have been made. If missions 
of minor importance were, in years past, questioned, under the vigi- 
lance of a spirit of retrenchment, without a fellow in former times, 
may we not now — although that spirit has been touched, and put to 
sleep by the caduceus of the State Department — may we not call to 
our aid so much of the sober watchfulness of the best days of our 
republic as may enable us, with due diligence, to examine such a 
question of appropriation as this item of this Bill has brought before 
us ? It relates to no mission to an infant nation, or some inconsid- 
erable State ; but to our long-established legation to a court among 
the most illustrious of Europe, and involving relations pre-eminently 
interesting to our country. Innovations relative to this distin- 
guished mission do, above many others, place our national interests 
in jeopardy. Our relations with Russia have hitherto been cher- 
ished and sustained by a Minister Plenipotentiary residing near that 
court, at that court, in the royal city of Petersburg!), and within the 
political and social circle of the Emperor himself, the high dignitaries 
of his government, and the diplomatic envoys of all the nations of 
Europe, and many of those of Asia. 

What, then, is the question before the committee, under the item 
of appropriation ? The gentleman from Ohio, (Mr. Stanberry,) 
has moved to strike from the Bill the nine thousand dollars proposed 
to be appropriated for payment of the current year's salary to the 
gentleman said to have been despatched as Minister to Russia. 
He has ably, though briefly, sustained his motion. I trust the 
committee will indulge me in a few remarks on the same side of 
the question. 

The item itself bears no mark distinguishing it from others of the 
same kind, or giving us any warrant for rejecting this while those 
are allowed. We must look to other documents for information 
concerning this mission, and our obligations to furnish money for 
supporting this minister at the court of St. Petersburgh. The paper 
which I now take from the desk before me contains that information. 
It purports to be the annual message from the President of the United 
States to Congress, at the present session. It certainly bears his 
signature, and was sent to this House by that high dignitary. 
Notwithstanding these facts, the document must be received and 
considered entirely as the production of cabinet ministers. No 
literary gentleman in this hall — I mean, no member of this House 



TRISTAM BURGES. 251 

— who reads and examines this communication, made to us so much 
at length, could, I think, say, without hazard of their reputation, 
that he believes one sentence of it w r as composed by the distin- 
guished gentleman whose name is placed at the end of it. This, 
Sir, is not said for any purpose of derogation from the eminent 
official character of our first magistrate, but for a very different, a 
much more important purpose. Are gentlemen aware of the extent 
of our importation of European politics ? Have we not brought 
home, and put into use, the high tory maxim of their monarchies, 
that the king can do no wrong ? Was there ever a time in our 
country when the friends of any administration, other than the 
present, believed and practised this article of political faith with 
more unscrupulous devotion ? The cabinet ministers of our execu- 
tive have taken artful council from this fact. As European minis- 
ters, being answerable with their heads for what the king, their 
master, may, from the throne, communicate to his Lords and 
Commons, will not suffer any speech but of their own contriving to 
be thus communicated, so, the adroit ministers of our cabinet, taking 
shelter under the executive subserviency of the times, have not 
put upon the nation this message, but the President, a man who, if 
he moved at all, always marched straight forward to his object, 
they have betrayed into the crooked counsels which may, by dili- 
gent examination, be found in this message, sent to Congress by 
them, while they lie sheltered under the imposing name of the first 
dignitary of the nation. If the king can do no wrong, thank God 
ministers may, even in these times, be made accountable for the 
counsels which they have given him. " The right divine in man" 
to rule, " the enormous faith of many made for one," comprehends 
in its creed no permanent provision for any sycophant to skulk and 
screen himself behind the throne, and play the little tyrant with 
security. 

That part of this message, from which we learn the character of 
this mission to Russia, is all of it which now it concerns us to exam- 
ine. Our foreign relations are a branch of the Department of State ; 
and this mission was contrived, and the account of it contained in the 
message, has been given to us by the Secretary of that Department. 
The gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. Carson,) has read this 
account for one purpose— suffer me to read it for another. 



25 c 2 



SPEECHES OF 



" Our relations with Russia are of the most stable character. 
Respect for that empire, and confidence in its friendship towards 
the United States, have been so long entertained on our part, and 
so carefully cherished by the present Emperor and his illustrious 
predecessor, as to have become incorporated with the public senti- 
ment of the United States. 

" I sincerely regret to inform you that our Minister lately com- 
missioned to that court, on whose distinguished talents and great 
experience in public affairs I place great reliance, has been com- 
pelled, by extreme indisposition, to exercise a privilege which, in 
consideration of the extent to which his constitution had been 
impaired in the public service, was committed to his discretion, of 
leaving temporarily his post for the advantages of a more genial 
climate. 

" I have received the most satisfactory assurance that, in the 
mean time, the public interests in that quarter will be preserved 
from prejudice, by the intercourse which he will continue, through 
the Secretary of Legation, with the Russian Cabinet." 

Am I not correct in saying that this fabric was wrought in the 
Department of State ? Who but Mr. Secretary Van Buren would 
have devised such a mission, or selected such a man to fill it, or 
cause such a printed paper to be sent to this house ? We are told 
by it that our long established legation to Russia has been totally 
changed ; and that, in place of a permanently resident Minister at 
that court, regardless of the public service, a mission has been 
invented to suit the talents, the health, habits, and disposition of the 
distinguished individual for whom it was designed ! By the very 
terms of the mission, this individual is required to repair to 
Russia, but is authorized to leave that court, and that empire, 
whenever his health (and of that he alone is the judge) may require 
it. Who but the Machiavelian politician at the head of the State 
Department would have advised the President to such a mission, or 
dared to place on a document, prepared to be sent to this House, 
such a statement of its commencement, progress, and present con- 
dition ? In what part of the constitution, or laws of the United 
States, or of the usages of this government, does he find any thing 
in support of the measure 1 It will not be hazarding very much to 
say, that this House was never, before this time, called upon to pay 
such a salary for such services. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 253 

This distinguished Minister to Russia is John Randolph. How- 
does he understand the terms on which he agreed to embark on 
this mission ? The course of conduct pursued by him since his 
departure may give us some knowledge on the point. We are left 
in nearly utter darkness by the Department of State concerning all 
the movements of this Minister ; for the message merely tells us that 
he has already taken benefit under the sinecure clause in his charter 
of legation. He has left the court of our illustrious friend, the Auto- 
crat of all the Russias ; but when, or for what other region 1 Here 
the Secretary is cautiously silent. The chairman of the committee 
on Foreign Relations has been equally so. Can any gentleman of 
this committee either indoctrinate us into this great mystery of 
State, or give us the light of a single fact concerning the voyages 
and travels of this Minister of ours ; and let us know whether he 
is now moving or stationary ? Where is John Randolph ? Where 
is our ambassador, for whose public services Mr. Van Buren is 
calling upon us to provide a salary ? We are told that he is not 
where he was sent ; and that he had permission to go thence when 
and whither he might choose ; but whether he is in pursuit of health, 
now basking in the sunshine of Naples, or, for a like purpose, trav- 
ersing " the fog wrapt island of Britain," we are left to learn from 
the same authentic documents from which the chairman of the com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations seems to have taken advice ; rumor, 
and the public papers. These have " talked of his whereabouts ;" 
and, though, without giving daily bulletins of his health, habits, or 
motions ; yet their right to speak, and our right to hear, cannot be 
questioned, when those who know and could tell us the whole 
truth, persevere in a safe and cautious silence. 

If we are left by the Secretary without knowledge of his move- 
ments or localities, we are equally uninstructed by him concerning 
the health of this ambassador. We are merely told that he has 
already availed himself of his right by the terms of his commission, 
to abandon the public service. In what state of health was he then, 
is he now, or probably will he be, at any future time ? For legislating 
on this subject, in what a luminous condition this present Secretary 
has placed this House ! We have an equally distinct view of the 
past, the present, and the future. Does any gentleman of this 
committee possess the power to tell us whether John Randolph 
might now, or ever can be required, by the terms of his legation, to 



254 SPEECHES OF 

return to the court of Russia ? Is not this salary intended to be 
given to him for the distinguished services already rendered at that 
court ? If his health continue to require it, he has, we are told, the 
right to choose his place of residence. What are, what have been 
his own opinions concerning that health ? You have all seen him* 
walk into this House, and out of it, and must know his own opinions 
concerning his own health. We have often heard him pronounce 
his chronic complaint, " a church-yard cough." In winter, " he 
should not live over corn-planting ;" in seed time, " he should die 
before harvest." He has for years been travelling from New-York 
to Liverpool, from England to France, from America to Europe, 
and from Europe to America, in pursuit of health. Has he not, 
from all this, learned that neither time nor travel can bring back to 
age the bloom of youth, or to infirmity, the vigor of health ? Were 
he, at this moment, to walk into this hall, wrapped, from the floor 
to the eyes, in flannel and fearnought, what would he tell you, Sir, 
concerning his health ? What, of his intended residence in Russia ? 
No, Sir, if he be the judge — (and who but he can be the judge of 
his own health ?) — he will never again return to the court of the 
Czar. We are, therefor, directed and required, by the Secretary 
of State, to appropriate the item of nine thousand dollars for the 
salary of a public minister, who has been in the public service, at 
the place of his destined residence, not much more than a like num- 
ber of days. He arrived at St. Petersburgh, was presented to the 
Emperor, made his bow, or genuflexion, retired, and went to — 
England ? France ? Italy ? or where ? No mortal man, on this side 
the Atlantic, can inform us. 

During this nine days residence, what service did he render to 
the American people ? The Secretary is satisfied ; and we surely 
ought not to be anxious about this great affair. We are told it is 
a matter exclusively within the competency of the executive ; and, 
therefore, it is, I presume, considered, that the representatives of 
the people have no other vocation but to vote the promised and re- 
quired compensation. He certainly succeeded, even in that short 
time, in rendering himself very distinguished at the court of Russia ; 
and, therefore, it may be said, in giving equal celebrity to his coun- 
try. He certainly gave voice to every tongue of rumor in both 
hemispheres. His mission will hereafter be regarded as an era in 
our foreign relations ; and the residence of Randolph at the court 



TRISTAM B URGES. 255 

of Russia will long be talked of as a phenomenon in diplomacy. 
For this we must give him the nine thousand dollars demanded^by 
the Secretary. 

What could such a man do for his country in the character of a 
foreign minister ? Just what he has done ; which was very much 
like what each man in the nation, of all parties, who knew him, 
must have expected he would do. Genius he certainly has ; for he 
is original, and unlike all other men. If you please, he is eloquent ; 
but if so, that eloquence is like himself, sui generis. These have 
enabled him to perform what he has done ; could they qualify him 
for the services of a great diplomatic minister? Do not these 
require sound judgment ; deep, extensive and regular thinking ; 
laborious perseverance in business ; and, above all, prudence and 
vigilant circumspection ? In his thirty years' public service, where 
are the monuments of his political wisdom, and labors of patriotism ? 
They are all of apiece ; of one uniform character ; and this Russian 
residence will neither give the blush, or the palm to any other public 
transaction of this remarkable man throughout his political life. 

With a perfect knowledge of this man, the Secretary of State 
could not have contrived this legation, so different from all others, 
with any views to the public service. This man was sent out not 
to benefit the people abroad, but to relieve the administration at 
home. The crafty Secretary had witnessed the political movements 
of this eccentric man. He feared the comet might return again 
and visit his political hemisphere. He had seen it blaze in peri- 
helium — 

" With fear of change perplexing men in power." 
Was it not prudent to remove this star of malign influence to another 
sky 1 It has been done ; and the nation must pay, not for a mission 
made for the advancement of their interests, but made to secure the 
political power of the Secretary. 

We have been told that our relations with Russia are of high and 
important interest ; and, therefore, we cannot dispense with this 
appropriation, because, if we refuse this salary, we shall defeat the 
mission. Should this mission, by which no public benefit was 
intended, and from which none can be hoped, be recalled, it may be 
replaced by one of better purpose, and efficient character. It is an 
obstruction in the " straight forward" path of our relations with 
Russia, and we are laboring to abate, or to remove it out of the way. 



256 SPEECHES OF 

Our relations with that government are truly important. That 
empire is perhaps the most numerous in population, and certainly 
the most extensive in territory, of any power on the globe. No 
nation of the old world, otherwise than by colonies, approach so 
near to us. This people are advancing in civilization, wealth, and 
power, beyond any example in their former history. In the last 
controversy of arms, between Russia and the Ottoman empire, had 
not other powers of Europe interposed a shielding hand, the Moslem, 
after a dominion of more than four centuries in the fairest part of 
Europe, had been, driven beyond the Bosphorus ; and the Autocrat 
of Russia would have ascended the throne of Constantine. At all 
times, our relations with such a power must be important to the 
American people. Are those relations taken care of now, as here- 
tofore they have been, and as now especially they ought to be ? 

Yes, Sir, I say as now they should be. For now Europe is con- 
vulsed, and agitated from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. The 
flame of war is but just repressed. Troops are called into the field, 
in almost every nation ; and Russia, in a kind of winter campaign, 
has sent out two hundred thousand soldiers to her south-western 
frontier, to look out on the old battle-fields of Belgium and France. 
In this condition of Europe, do we not require an able, a diligent, a 
resident Minister at Russia ? Withhold this appropriation, abolish 
this sinecure legation, and this may be effected. 

One other fact in the history of our diplomacy renders the resi- 
dence of a skilful, faithful Minister at that Court, at this time, above 
all others, indispensable. We learn from the Department of State, 
through the same medium, this message, that a treaty of amity and 
commerce has been negotiated between the United States and the 
Sublime Porte. The Secretary, with great candor, told us what 
the Turk had agreed to do for the Christian — but he, with great 
caution, concealed what the Christian had agreed to do for the 
Turk. This gentleman is as well persuaded as the French mon- 
arch was, that " he who knows not how to dissemble, knows not 
how to rule." Rumor has run clean counter to Mr. Van Buren ; 
for though she often tells more than the truth, she never tells less. 
What have we learned from, this witness ? Why, truly, that a 
secret article is contained in this treaty, and the fact was, I believe, 
published in the newspapers before we received the message. It 
is said, it is believed, that by this article the American people agree 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



257 



to furnish armed ships to the Sultan of Turkey in his future wars 
with Christian nations. Do you believe, Sir, that our Envoy had 
left Constantinople before the Russian Minister at the Porte knew 
this fact ? The very drogoman, by whom your Mr. Rhind talked with 
Reis EfFendi, would, for half a plate of piasters, have told the whole 
story to Count OrlofF; and sworn he was doing good service to the 
Prophet by betraying one Christian dog to another. Sir, has 
friendship for the Russian Empire been so cherished by the present 
Sovereign, and his illustrious predecessor, that it has become a 
sentiment of the American people ? Is not this secret article a 
diplomatic fraud, not only on that friendship, but, which it quite as 
much concerns us to consider, upon that Sovereign who has so 
generously cherished it ? I say nothing now of what may happen, 
if the Turk should again war upon the Greek, or how it may com- 
port with the republican principles of the Secretary of State, when 
he shall call on this House to furnish ships to that despot, thereby 
aiding him in bringing that people again under his iron yoke. What 
shall we say to the Emperor of Russia ? Who shall make our 
explanation, if we shall have any to make ? It is probable that the 
news of this treaty, and perhaps a copy of it, reached the Court of 
St. Petersburgh shortly after our Minister left that city. The 
shortness of his residence there, the suddenness of his departure, the 
intelligence of this secret article, the intended sojourn of that Minis- 
ter, perhaps in England, perhaps in France, the attitudes of the 
nations of Europe, all giving dreadful note of preparation for war, 
must have had some tendency to place our relations with Russia on 
a footing not the most firm and friendly. Does not sound policy — 
does not national good sense, call on the American people to have 
an able Minister at that Court, and that, too, right speedily ? Have 
we one there now ? Under the mission for which this appropria- 
tion is to be made, are we likely soon, or ever, I do not say to have 
such a man there, but to have there any Minister at all ? 

In answer, to all these anxious forebodings, we are told that, in 
this absence of the Minister, the Secretary of Legation takes very 
special and satisfactory care of our relations at the Court of St. 
Petersburgh. If this were not too ludicrous, it must be received as 
a mere mockery of the American people. When this paragraph' 
came from under his pen, Mr. Secretary Van Buren must, if he 
had placed his hand there, have felt something on his face different 



258 SPEECHES OF 

from the eternal smile. Who is the Secretary of Legation ? The 
protege of the Minister, John Randolph Clay — a lad of less, or 
certainly not more, than twenty-one years old ; undistinguished by 
talents, education, or employment ; without acquaintance with men, 
or things, or business. A youth to whom fame has not, nor have 
his friends, attributed any thing extraordinary, either in possession 
or promise, and with nothing but his sirname to recommend him to 
public attention. I would not, I cannot, speak in derogation of this 
youth ; and all I would say, is, that he must be utterly unqualified 
for the public station where he is placed. The service requires 
men ; the nation has able men; Herculean men. Why then hazard 
our interests, perhaps our peace, by placing the weight of empires 
on the slender shoulders of boyhood ? Let us strike out this appro- 
priation, that this sinecure, this state mission, may be avoided ; that 
the Minister may return to his " Constituents," the Secretary to his 
studies ; and that the PRESIDENT may send a Legation to 
Russia fit for the public service. 

As it will not be contended that this appropriation should be 
made because the gentleman, who may take the benefit of it, is a 
native of Virginia ; so may gentlemen be assured that these remarks 
have no sectional origin ; and I utterly disclaim any, and all adver- 
sary feeling to that distinguished commonwealth, her interests, and 
her citizens. I have spoken as one of the representatives of the 
American people ; and as one, coming from a part of our common 
country, which has done, and will do as much for the illustrious 
men of Virginia, as any other part of this nation. This appropria- 
tion is opposed, because it is intended to support a mission, framed 
for purposes unconnected with the public interests, places our for- 
eign relations in peril, and is without any justification in law usage, 
or constitutional principle. 



SPEECH ON THE APPROPRIATION BILL. 



Messrs. Barbour and Coke of Virginia, Mr. Wayne of Georgia, 
and Mr. Cambreleng of New-York, severally attacked Mr. Burges 
for his remarks on Mr. Stanberry's motion. On the 15th of Janu- 
ary, 1831, he thus addressed the House in reply to those gentlemen. 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Speaker : — Permit me to justify myself, under all which 
has been said, both against me, and against whatever has been here 
advanced by me in support of the motion made by the gentleman 
from Ohio. With the indulgence of this House, it may be well to 
look back to the question made by the motion ; for gentlemen in 
their zeal to eulogize the Minister, or to abuse those who doubt the 
correctness of his appointment, have departed almost entirely from 
the matter in issue before us. 

The objection to this appropriation, and the motion to strike it 
from this Bill, have been made, because it is proposed for payment 
of a salary to a foreign minister, who, by his commission of legation, 
or by certain secret articles given to him, is authorized to leave the 
Court to which he is sent, to go to any other country, whenever, in 
his own opinion, his health may require it ; and not to return to 
that Court so long as, according to the same opinion, it may be 
injurious to his health to do so. We deny such mission to be a 
legal one : we deny that the salary provided by law for foreign 
ministers, is, or ever can be, due to any man sent abroad under such 
credentials : with such privileges reserved, and such powers granted 
to him, not to the public, but to his own use. The objection to this 
appropriation has, therefore, not been made because the gentleman 
was, when sent abroad, and had long been, a valetudinarian : or, 
because, if then in health, that health, exhausted by the toils of 
diplomacy, might require relaxation and relief from public service. 
No, Sir ; nor because that refreshment might not be found unless 



260 SPEECHES OF 

under a milder sky, and by removing to a more genial climate than 
that of Russia. Such things may excite, as they certainly have 
excited, the special wonder of the nation ; and they are, and will be 
very proper topics of debate, when considering the "State pur- 
poses" of this mission: but they have not been nor will they be made 
the grounds of objection to the appropriation of this item in the Bill. 

We object to this salary on account of the illegality of this mis- 
sion, and because the Secretary of State, knowing the enfeebled 
health of Mr. Randolph — knowing his inability to attend to the 
laborious details of that public service — knowing that his constitu- 
tion could not endure either the winter or summer climate of Russia, 
did invent this mission, and did advise the President to send out this 
gentleman with credentials as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of his Imperial 
Majesty the Emperor of Russia ; and at the same to give him a 
commission, no matter for what cause, to reside as such Minister, 
in whatever country he might choose to reside. Such a mission 
cannot be formed — such a minister cannot be sent abroad, either 
under our laws or our constitution, or under the usages and laws of 
nations. I ask the attention of the House, therefore, to the inquiry, 
whether this salary can be due for an illegal and void mission ? 
whether it can be due as a quantum meruit, or as a pro rata com- 
pensation for the services which were rendered at the Court of 
Russia ; or, last of all, whether it can be due, because this mission 
may subserve certain purposes, highly useful to the Secretary of 
State ? Before these inquiries can, to the best purpose, be made, it 
is proper to give some reply to what has been offered by several 
gentlemen against this motion. These gentlemen have said less to 
support this appropriation, than to impugn the motives of those who 
oppose it. With my motives the gentlemen are welcome to amuse 
themselves. The storm of their abuse passed over me, as the 
winter storms of my native New-England have often passed over 
the humble dwelling of my boyhood, without shaking a stone from 
the chimney, or starting a shingle on the roof. J have too much 
respect for myself to believe that they have abused me from the 
wantonness of malice, but do believe it was done simply because 
they could find nothing to say more appropriate to the question. 

This motion has been made to protect the rights of the nation 
against the encroachments of power. Those who resist such 



TRISTAM BURGEE 261 

encroachments and assaults of power, must always expect to 
encounter vociferous, if not infuriated adversaries. I have not 
entered this warfare without "counting the cost." A school of 
high authority taught me, that, in a war of aggression, " He who 
takes the sword shall perish by the sword," — but in a war of 
defence, "let him who has no sword sell his coat and buy one." 

How then has our defence been met and answered ? How by 
the gentleman from Virginia ? (Mr. Barbour.) First of all, I am 
accused of objecting to this appropriation, because it is for the use 
of a Virginian. In this the gentleman is utterly mistaken. I 
informed him of this error in a few moments after he had taken his 
seat. He has, notwithstanding, chosen to put this error in print. 
Suffer me, Sir, in my place, and before this House, to protest against 
this procedure. The gentlemen who heard me then, and who do 
me the honor to hear me now, I call to witness, that I said no such 
thing ; and I should have nothing to regret, could my protestation 
be made the printed companion of the gentleman's allegation against 
me, and travel, side by side, with it, under the eye of the nation. 
This, I know, cannot be done : and I must suffer the imputation, 
wherever his speech is read, without my correction of its errors. 
Be it so ; but I believe there is too much good sense, and too much 
moral sentiment in Virginia, to set down one of their fellow men as 
quite so stupid, or quite so malevolent. 

The gentleman alleges that I considered this mission as a bribe 
offered to Virginia. This might have been said by me, because I 
believed it to be true. If said, was it -said, or could it be intended, 
in derogation of Virginia ? Is Virginia dishonored by this attempt 
of the wily Secretary ? I did not, and no man will intimate that 
Virginia had even looked with a favorable eye on this bribe, this 
splendid bestowment. Not those who hear, but those who listen to 
the song of the syren, and are allured by the enchantment, become 
debased by the temptation. Sir, temptations are spread over the 
whole path of our lives, from the cradle to the grave. The entice- 
ments of pleasure beset our youth ; the toils of ambition are spread 
for our vigorous manhood ; and in old age, the honest amor habendi, 
when all other loves are frozen in the heart, allures the dim eye to 
gaze at, and the sure ear to listen to, the glittering beauties and 
golden melodies of avarice. 



262 SPEECHES OF 

Are we dishonored, because, in the language of Sir William Jones. 
H vice is permitted to spread her snares around us, that the triumph 
of virtue may be more conspicuous ?" The ermine of the judge is 
not tarnished because some unprincipled litigant has craftily prof- 
fered a bribe to the Court. The name of the insulted Lucretia has 
arrived to us after a journey of more than two thousand years. Is 
it soiled by time, or by the breath of any one of the millions of mil- 
lions who pronounced it ? That name, Sir, like the Alps of her 
own Italy, whose tops nearest to heaven, are covered with eternal 
snow, is the monument of imperishable purity ; while the name of the 
treacherous and cowardly Tarquin, scarred with infamy, will be, as 
it has been, throughout all time, the name of whatever is most vile 
and odious. Sir, Virginia is not dishonored ; the tempter, and not 
the tempted, will suffer the infamy of the deed. 

The gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Barbour,) would overthrow 
our objections to this appropriation by eulogizing the man sent on 
the mission. He alludes to the monuments of Mr. Randolph's 
fame ; and lest men should call on him to show where they are, he 
has placed them in the hearts of his countrymen, where no being 
but the searcher of hearts, could discover their existence. What 
indications has Virginia given that those monuments are where the 
gentleman has located them 1 He has long been a Representative 
in Congress from that State. This is something in his favor ; but 
from a State so long separated into districts, it is not conclusive. 
It is so confined to his constituents, and only proves, what the gen- 
tleman himself has often asserted on this floor, " that never had 
man such constituents." He represented the whole State in the 
Senate — true ; but this was for the fragment only of a term. Why 
was he not re-appointed ? The interests, the honor, and high dig- 
nity of Virginia had been placed under his guardianship. How 
did he perform the offices created by these trusts ? His conduct as 
a Senator from Virginia was brought before the Legislature of that 
State, on a question concerning his re-appointment. In this great 
Areopagus, than which none is more dignified, each judge, if he had 
a monument of this man in his heart or his house, read the inscrip- 
tion upon it. On what was he tried ? Not on his political creed ; 
he did not suffer, as the best of men have, for heresy. Hfs faith 
was, for every purpose, beneficial to himself, sound; his works alone 
were brought into question. On this question a deep and interesting 



TRISTAM BURGES. 263 

debate arose. The gentleman may have been present and heard 
it ; or, if not, as it was published, he must have read it. It belonged 
to Virginia, and was a part of her great commonwealth concern ; 
nor would I have brought this wholesome example of family disci- 
pline before the nation, had not the eulogist of this froward son of 
Virginia told us, that the monuments of his exploits were in the 
hearts of his countrymen. Does this debate, or the result of it, 
confirm the gentleman's assertion ? He was weighed ; and " mene, 
mene, tekel upharsin," was written on all his monuments. He was 
rejected, and a distinguished Virginian was chosen to represent that 
State in the Senate, and restore her ancient honor and dignity in the 
councils of the nation. 

I ask again, where are the monuments of this man's glory ? 
Has he improved his native State in the great arts of civil life 1 In 
agriculture, his own peculiar vocation ? It has never been said of 
him. Have manufactures been fostered by his encouragement ? 
Sir, the very name is odious to him. The sheep, the most innocent 
of all animals, and supplying by its wool the material for perhaps 
our most useful manufacture — the sheep is so hateful to him, that, 
with all the poetry of the golden age in his blood, this gentleman 
has said, " I would go twenty rods out of my way to kick a sheep." 
Commerce has been as little encouraged by him as either of her 
sister arts in our family of national industry. He is one of a class of 
men now grown quite small in our country, who despise traffic and 
traders ; and would have considered Cosmo de Medicis, the princely 
merchant and founder of Florence, as no better than a tin pedlar. 
He is, literally, moral ; I trust pious ; but what has he done to 
advance learning, morality, or religion ? In this House, where he 
so long had a seat, where are the fruits of his sage counsels ; the 
laws originated or sustained by his eloquence ; and which will carry 
his name to posterity as a patriot statesman T When the gentleman 
shall point to these monuments, and show them to belong to Mr. 
Randolph, he may realize a fame somewhat less fugitive and perish- 
able than mere words. 

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Barbour) would carry my 
opposition to this salary to mere political account ; and says I am 
opposed to it because Mr. Randolph overthrew the fabric of federal 
power. Be it so ; let the man enjoy the entire fame of all the 
benefit, and all the mischief he has done. I had no share in that 



264 SPEECHES OF 

power which every citizen did not equally enjoy. It gave me no 
honor, no emolument : I do not believe, and I think thousands who 
aided in its overthrow, do not now believe, that any structure, since 
that time erected on its ruins, has given a holier sanctuary to the 
Constitution, or a more secure shelter to the rights and liberties of 
the people. If this giant partizan did overthrow that fabric, he 
could not bury under its ruins the great principles of the revolution. 
" Union and Independence ;" the songs of my cradle, the political 
creed of every hour of my life ; are not sooner to be forgotten 
than the sainted bosom which nourished my infancy. 

What did this man build, what could he build in its place ? Sir, 
When daylight first dawned on the world after this event, John 
Randolph sat, in the glimpses of the morning, like the genius of the 
earthquake, amidst the ruins of some splendid city, without the' 
power, or the will to move a single stone to rear a new edifice. 
Nay, Sir, when the statesmen of those times, forgetting the storm of 
party, set themselves in earnest to rebuilding, this man of monu- 
ments resisted their labors. Little does the gentleman know me, 
if he believes I feel anger at the labors, or envy at the fame of the 
man he has eulogized. He will be remembered, when much better 
Virginians, and perhaps the gentleman himself, may be forgotten ; 
but he will be remembered as the years of mildew and blight and 
famine are remembered, when those of plenty and prosperity are 
forgotten. He may live in story ; but not, like Washington, " in 
the hearts of his countrymen." 

I should have said no more of the Secretary of Legation, had not 
the gentleman transmitted his confirmation by the Senate into the 
Roman ceremonial of bestowing the Toga Virilis. This toga, this 
gown, was, in the open forum, given annually by all the Romans to 
all their boys who had, during the year, arrived to the age of 
seventeen years. By- this classical allusion, I presume the gentle- 
man intends to assure us, that Mr. Randolph's Secretary of Lega- 
tion has fully arrived at that interesting period of his life. I had 
asserted he was twenty-one, but I willingly admit the gentleman's 
correction. 

The other gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Coke) has reinforced 
his colleague. Will those gentlemen never have done with mis- 
stating me ? Have I reproached Virginia ? Never, Sir, never. 
When speaking of any one of her citizens here, I have spoken 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 



265 



of him as an American citizen. When speaking of that State, 
I have, on this floor, and elsewhere, spoken of her as one which 
poured her whole Spartan soul into the revolution, which sent 
to the field of conflict a band of patriot warriors, " who have 
filled the world with their and our glory ;" and which to secure the 
benefit, in addition to the triumphs of victory, relinquished her terri- 
torial claims to an empire, preferring to the State sectional interest 
the more glorious objects of union and independence. I reproach 
Virginia ! Is it not the birth-place of Washington ? Sir, who 
can reproach that most fortunate, most consecrated region, or even 
suppose the enormity possible, " and hope to be forgiven." 

I have, as the gentleman says, abused the President, and his Ma- 
chiavelian policy. I have spoken of the President as of the first dig- 
nitary of the nation, and in no terms of disrespect. I have alleged, 
that, like monarchs in the old world, he has been advised by minis- 
ters ; and under that advisement, has permitted those ministers to 
furnish, in his name, his annual message to Congress. Will the 
gentleman pledge his literary reputation, upon a denial of this alle- 
gation ? I have said the President has been miscounselled ; has 
suffered his confidence to be abused by an artful Minister ; and that 
too, in this very appointment. I put it to the gentleman, upon his 
conscience, to say, whether he believes this question could have 
come up, in this House, if Mr. Tazewell had been Secretary of 
State ? 

Of the Secretary of State I have spoken, and will speak, as I 
believe he merits- He is a power constitutionally connected with 
the Executive : but now, like the parasite plant under the shelter of 
the oak, it had crept, and clasped, and wound itself around the 
trunk, spire above spire, until it overtops the loftiest branch of the 
magnificent tree. The leaves of the ivy will soon conceal those of 
the oak, and unless the insidious plant be removed, render it a sap- 
less trunk. 

The gentleman recommends to us charity — Christian charity. 
Where does he learn that the delinquencies of rulers are to be vis- 
ited only in charity ? While the messenger of divine charity wept 
over the coming ruin of his nation, did he not severely rebuke those 
rulers, that generation of vipers, stinging and poisoning that nation, 
and hastening on that destruction. 



266 SPEECHES OF 

Sir, we are charitable. The people have looked on in charity. 
Charity has done her utmost. Her " mantle has covered a multi- 
tude of sins ;" but the brood has multiplied, and increased in size, 
and outgrown the covering. 

This gentleman unites with his colleague in eulogizing Virginia. 
It is all supererogation. History has done it justice. The lofty- 
minded matron, we knew, thought well of herself; but no one 
deemed her quite so proud as the gentleman has announced her to 
us. In wielding the broom, or scolding her household, she may 
well scorn Neptune's trident, and Jove's power to thunder, as the 
gentleman says she does ; and some of her children have given us 
fair samples of the family lectures. 

The gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. Wayne,) has come forward 
to support this " State Mission." — To support, do I say ? His effort 
seems rather suited to rebuke me and those engaged with me in 
support of this motion, into utter silence. Nor would he silence us 
only, but stop the public press. Silence this House ! — silence the 
public press ! what more can be required for the establishment of a 
despotism over national opinion ? 

The gentleman has advanced an argument on the question. It 
is drawn from analogy. He will permit me to say, that such argu- 
guments are, of all others, the least conclusive. Founded on the 
resemblance of things, they have all the uncertainty of their foun- 
dation. He who should affirm that all human forms are alike, 
would affirm the truth ; but what conclusion could he draw from it ? 
For he who should affirm that all human forms are different, would 
equally affirm the truth. The gentleman affirms, that we ought to 
make the appropriation to pay this salary, notwithstanding Mr. 
Randolph, by permission of the Executive, left the Court of Russia 
a few days after his arrival there, and has not returned, or may not 
return to that Court again. He alleges this, because the members 
of Congress are paid, notwithstanding they may be taken sick, 
either on their journey hither, or while here, or on their return 
home. It is true ; but the analogy between the cases extends no 
farther. Suppose a case just like Mr. Randolph's : suppose a 
member of this House arrives here, is here taken sick ; and, on 
leave of absence, departs from this city for Charleston, Savannah, 
or New-Orleans, to regain his health, and does not return during 
the session; would he receive his pay? Could he receive it? I 



TRISTAM BURGES. 267 

regret the gentleman thought proper to say that we, in support of 
the motion, had used falsehood, " a thing equally dishonorable in 
argument, with the use of impoisoned weapons in war." I regret 
this, because I had expected from him nothing but what was fair in 
debate ; and pure, classical, and urbane in language. This expec- 
tation had been sustained by my own attention to the gentleman's 
demeanor in this House ; but it had been raised by the report of 
him made to me by one bearing the relations of friendship to him, 
and than whom no man on earth is dearer to me. Will the gentle- 
man do himself the justice to mark and point out the items of false- 
hood set down and used by us in our account of objections to this 
appropriation ? 

All these gentlemen agree in the argument against this motion, 
drawn from the incompetency of this House to question this appro- 
priation. The President and Senate, to whom the Constitution has 
confided our foreign relations, have, they tell us, established this 
Legation ; and this House cannot, as they affirm, refuse this appro- 
priation in support of it. Are we placed by the people as the Con- 
stitutional keepers of the public treasure, and yet bound to follow 
every Executive call for their money ? Is it our whole fiscal duty 
to obey orders and grant subsidies ? Does not deliberation, and 
debate, and discretion, belong to this House ? We can grant, and 
every power which can grant, is, by its very nature, endowed with 
the power of refusal. Sir, our power to refuse appropriations is the 
Constitutional check placed in our hands, not to stop, but to regulate 
the movements of the Executive. Without this power, and its dis- 
creet and diligent use, the nation would be at the disposal of the 
President and Cabinet Council. 

Sir, this mission may be regarded as the commencement of a 
system of sinecure appointments, of salaries without services. Sent 
to one Court where he did nothing ; and in the exercise of his pow- 
ers, gone to another, where he can do nothing, what service is 
required, or was, or could be expected from him ? When he shall 
return next June, what will he have done? His most zealous 
friends must say, nothing. If, then, he receive this salary, he will 
receive it without service of any kind rendered to the Nation for it. 
The Secretary does avow, in the Message, that the " power to leave 
the Russian Court for the advantage of a more genial climate, was 
given to Mr. Randolph in consideration of the extent to which his 



268 



SPEECHES OF 



constitution had been impaired in the public service." What were 
those services ? The duties of a member of this House, or of the 
Senate, and for which lie received his legal compensation, like every 
other member. Was " his constitution impaired" by these services ? 
Were not the constitutions of others impaired, and even their lives 
consumed in this service ? Is this gentleman alone selected for a 
place where he may, " in consideration of the extent to which his 
constitution has been impaired by those services," receive in one 
year the sum of eighteen thousand dollars ? This, Sir, is the first 
pension for civil service on our records. How many hearts of revo- 
lutionary soldiers would this have made glad ? Into how many 
abodes of desolation and widowhood it might have carried the light 
of joy, and brought on you the blessings of how many now ready 
to perish ? Such a system of sinecure appointment and civil pen- 
sionage may be extended alike to the courts of all civilized nations, 
and to the hordes of barbarians, requiring no residence, either near 
the palaces or the tents of the foreign power ; the formality of a 
visit and presentation may soon be omitted, and the Envoy Extra- 
ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary will, " in consideration of his 
public services," be permitted to receive his outfit and salary, while 
he continues to reside on his plantation. 

What a scheme of speculation does this system open to the crafty 
and unprincipled, to men always at market either to sell themselves 
or to buy others ! By this, unstable politicians of every variety of 
creed may be kept to the true faith. By this, tempest-beaten par- 
tizans, shipwrecked in principle and fortune, may be towed into 
port, and laid up and preserved for future use. Establish this sys- 
tem, Sir, and add to it a Government Treasury Bank, and the Sec- 
retary might buy into the Presidency, with your own money ; nor, 
like that Roman who bought the Imperial Purple at auction, be 
obliged to lay down his own gold and silver for the purchase. 
Shall we, Sir, through any fear of transcending our jurisdiction, 
give our sanction to such a system 1 A bolder stand than is now 
required was taken sixteen years ago, on this floor, by an honorable 
member, now high in office, and presiding over the deliberations of 
the other House of Congress. " I will," said he, " vote no appro- 
priation for the Navy, until the Secretary of that Department is 
removed." What was the result ? The Secretary was removed ; 



TRISTAM B URGES. %69 

and the naval branch of the service did receive, as it always has 
received, his cordial and efficient support. In 1795, when the 
appropriation was under consideration, for carrying into effect the 
second treaty with Great Britain, Mr. Gallatin declared, in this 
House, that a treaty had no binding force as a law of the land until 
such appropriations were made ; and that this House, holding the 
power to control such appropriations, held the constitutional power 
of rejecting treaties. Mr. Madison contended that this House had 
the right to judge concerning the expediency of treaties ; and, as 
they might decide that question to grant or refuse appropriations for 
carrying them into effect. This case does not require the aid of 
these doctrines ; for public faith will not be touched in our foreign 
relations if Mr. Randolph should not receive a salary for residing in 
England as Minister at Russia. Has the gentleman from Virginia, 
(Mr. J. S. Barbour,) forgotten that the motion to strike out the 
enacting clause of the Bill appropriating salaries for the Panama 
Mission was sustained by sixty-one members of this House, and that 
he himself, with nine of his colleagues, voted for it ? Will gentlemen 
still contend for their own incompetency to question this appropria- 
tion ? Sir, we are, by the Constitution, vested with a high compe- 
tency and discretion on these important matters ; and to these con- 
stitutional attributes of this House has this motion been addressed. 

It is humiliating, but I must reply to the gentleman from New. 
York. For myself, I would let him pass. It is a kind of Domician 
amusement, this killing flies with a bodkin. Gladly would I say, 
with the commisseration of Uncle Toby, to the little buzzing incon- 
venience, (when I had him in my hand,) " Go, poor insect, go ; the 
world is surely wide enough for thee and me." 

I have some apology for giving some attention to the speech of 
the gentleman from New- York. The place, however it may be filled, 
does give a kind of character to what is said or done in it. No 
matter how utterly inconsiderable, or even contemptible a person 
may be, whenever a constitutional portion of the people has placed 
him at one of these desks, replying to what he may have said, 
though it may not be very creditable, yet it must be excusable, in any 
member of this House. The Romans were wont to place a wooden 
image in their gardens, as the special protector of the place ; and 
Horace has related to us the soliloquy of one of these Roman deities, 



270 SPEECHES OF 

wherein he gives some account of his own apotheosis : " I was," 
said the Priapus, " a useless log, until the carpenter took me in 
hand ; but he has now worked me up into a God !" The people oi" 
New-York can surely turn out as good work as the Roman car- 
penter. 

We are by this learned and honorable gentleman, reproached for 
a want of magnanimity ; and are told that no objection, for any 
such cause, was made by him and his party to any appropriation. 
The true difference between his and our efforts will be found in this ; 
we labor to save money from illegal and useless appropriation ; 
he labored to abuse those who had, in pursuance of legal and useful 
appropriation, honestly paid it away. 

What were the doings of this magnanimous gentleman in a Com- 
mittee of which he was a remarkable member? Here is the 
record-book of that Committee. I have selected, as an ordinary 
sample of this gentleman's labors of retrenchment, four cases, and 
will trouble the House with a few quotations, and a few remarks 
upon them. 

On the 25th of April, 1828, the Committee being in session — 

" The Chairman then stated to the Committee, that he felt it his 
duty to mention, that a citizen, now a resident of this District, had 
inquired of him whether, in any of the accounts of the contingent 
expenses of the Government, the United States were debited with 
the sum of five thousand five hundred dollars, paid to the late Daniel 
P. Cook, late Representative in Congress, from the State of Illinois, 
for certain diplomatic services, upon which Mr. Cook was supposed 
to have been sent abroad during the last summer. 

" The Chairman stated that he did not feel at liberty to commu- 
nicate the name of his informant, but in regard to the purport of the 
communication he felt no such reserve, and it was for the committee 
to make such order on the statement as they might deem proper. 

" It was, on motion of Mr. Cambreleng, 

" Resolved, That the Committee consider the communication." 

Sir, this Committee, under this resolution, sent for witnesses ; 
honorable members of both Houses and the Postmaster-General 
were called before them. Why not call for the man himself, for 
Daniel P. Cook, against whom this anonymous information had 
been made? He was dead. The man at whom the gentleman 



TRISTAMBURGES. 271 

from New- York magnanimously aimed his arrow, slept quietly in 
the green bosom of his own beloved Illinois. The voice of the 
nameless informer, embodied by the resolution of the gentleman, 
though it might pollute every threshold, and violate the harmony of 
every house in the nation, could not reach the sanctuary, or inter- 
rupt the repose of the tomb. Permit me to speak a word concerning 
Daniel P. Cook, because every man who hears me did not know 
him as many of us did who sat in this House with him. He was a 
man whom the gentleman from New- York would probably not call 
a genius ; but his mind was of that cast and capacity in the trans- 
action of human affairs, to which every man would wish to commit 
the management of his own. His sense was that of the every day 
intercourse of men ; and would pass like the most precious, or most 
useful metal, wherever such a commodity could be in request. A 
man, in whatever may be required of manhood ; a child in all that 
singleness of heart and purity of purpose, which render childhood 
so amiable. With those who knew him well, he had so fixed him- 
self in their hearts, that though they might wish to forget the pain 
of their loss, they can never cease to remember his useful public 
labors, and many endearing social qualities. 

Our relations with Cuba have long been interesting and important. 
Gentlemen will call to mind that we have frequently heard from 
Europe, that Cuba might be transferred from Spain to some other 
sovereignty. Such a report was rife in this country in the winter 
of 1826-7. It was believed by friends of the last administration, 
that a confidential agent was, by Mr. Adams, sent to Cuba, to 
ascertain, if possible, the truth of this report ; and that Daniel P. 
Cook was that agent. He had, it was believed, been paid out of 
that fund which Congress has, ever since the foundation of the 
Government, annually, or otherwise, appropriated, and placed in 
the hands of the President, for the compensation of confidential 
services. All this may be known to the gentleman from New-York 
now ; and had there been fraud in the transaction, we should have 
heard it on this occasion, called at his mouth by its harshest English 
name. 

The gentleman might have known the whole affair at that time. 
This appears from the following letter from Mr. Clay, then Secre- 
tary of State. 



272 SPEECHES O 1 

Department of Statk, > 
Washington, May 1, 1828. \ 

To James Hamilton, Jr. Esq. fyc. 

S IR — I have received your letter under date this day, stating that 
" it having been ascertained that the late Daniel P. Cook, late Repre- 
sentative in Congress, from the State of Illinois, received a sum of 
money from the Government, during the spring or summer of the 
last year, for certain services, supposed to have been either foreign 
or diplomatic, you are instructed by the Committee on Retrench- 
ment, to request me to inform you where they are to look for the 
auditing of the sum, said to have been received by Mr. Cook, and 
if not audited in the usual course, what was its amount." 

Without admitting or denying the correctness of the information 
which the Committee are stated to have received, I have the honor 
to observe that I am not aware of the disbursement of any money 
through the agency of this Department, the account of which has 
not been, or in a regular course of settlement, is not to be, audited 
in the usual way at the Treasury, or passed upon a certificate of 
the President, in conformity with the provisions of the third section 
of the act of the 1st of May, 1810, entitled, " An act fixing the com- 
pensation of public Ministers and Consuls residing on the coast of 
Barbary, and for other purposes." I cannot presume that it was 
the intention of the Committee to inquire into any disbursement 
which may have been made agreeably to that section ; and all 
others are accessible to them, in like manner with other expendi- 
tures. I have, however, the authority of the President, for saying, 
that I will make to the Committee a confidential communication in 
relation to the expenditure to which they are supposed to allude, if 
they will signify their desire for such a communication. In that 
case, I should be glad to learn their pleasure as soon as convenient, 
as I purpose leaving the city on the 4th instant, a few days, on 
account of the State of my health. 

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

H. CLAY. 

Why not receive and communicate this confidentially to the 
House ? Every statesman must perceive the indecorum of giving 
it to the House in any other way than confidential. What ! place 
upon our ordinary journals, publish in our papers, and send to 



TR1STAM BURGES. 273 

Europe, that the friendship of Gen. Vives, the Intendant General of 
Cuba, had induced him confidentially to communicate to the Agent 
of our Government, concerning the disposition of Spain to sell, and 
of England to buy the colonial sovereignty of that island 1 A con- 
fidential communication would not do. A plain, honest, and full 
statement of facts was not wanted. The magnanimous gentleman 
from New-York wished to strike a blow at the President and Sec- 
retary ; he chose to do it by mining ; and if, in his subterranean 
course, he should dig into the grave of Daniel P. Cook, how could 
he doubt that the exigencies of the public service would justify this 
violation of the sanctuary of the tomb ? He chose to follow the 
trail of an informer, who had so little confidence in this inquisition, 
that he would not " commit" even his own foul name to the gentle- 
man's safe keeping. Mr. Cook, it was known, was in very delicate 
health, and was about to visit Cuba for the benefit of the climate. 
In the examination of the witnesses, the whole labor of the gentle- 
man was directed to prove that the state of his health would not 
permit his doing any public service, and that if he received any 
compensation, he must have received it for nothing. The gentleman 
was discontented by the result ; for it came out in evidence, that 
feeble as was his health, he had performed all that was required of 
him. His compensation was not ascertained, but it is probable, say 
the committee, that he received more than one thousand dollars ; 
and this is set down by the magnanimity of the gentleman as an 
act of" Executive favoritism, or flagrant abuse." 

Compare this service and expenditure with the mission, and min- 
ister, and appropriation, now under debate. Mr. Cook was in deli- 
cate health ; but that served to place him above suspicion of any 
sinister purpose in visiting Cuba. His acquaintance with Gen. 
Vives while in this country, the known integrity and obvious sim- 
plicity of his character, the amenity of his manners, and even his 
delicate health, all combined, must have placed him at once, in 
relations of entire confidence and frank intercourse with the Inten- 
dant ; and enabled him to obtain speedily from that Governor all 
which it was proper for him to communicate, or for our Executive 
to know. Let the gentleman taunt us for want of magnanimity. 
Let the nation judge between us. 

The next case in this record to which I ask your attention, is 
that of John H. Pleasants. The House will have a full knowledge 



274 SPEECHES OF 

of this case from two letters, the first from Mr. Pleasants to M r. 
Clay, the second from Mr. Clay to the Committee of Retrenchment. 

MR. PLEASANTS TO MR. CLAY. 

Liverpool, 7th July, 1825. 

My Dear Sir — If you are surprised at the date of my letter, 1 
am scarcely less surprised at the circumstance myself. To be in 
England at all, is what I never expected. To be here when I 
expected to have been in Buenos Ayres, seems rather the effect of 
enchantment, than of ordinary causation. It remains, Sir, for me 
to account for this apparent dereliction of duty ; and I cannot but 
hope, that a plain statement of the circumstances which changed my 
destination, will exculpate me from any blame in your eyes, solicit- 
ous as I am to preserve that good opinion which procured for me 
the charge conferred by the Department of State. 

After many ineffectual attempts to secure an earlier passage, in 
which I was baffled by the diminished intercourse between the 
United States and the provinces of South America, which lie beyond 
the Spanish Main, I succeeded in procuring a passage in the brig 
William Tell, which sailed from New- York on the 28th May, for 
the river Plata. This vessel was not such a one as I should have 
selected, had I had my choice. Being simply a merchant ship, it 
was destitute of a comfortable accommodation ; nevertheless, 
becoming impatient for action, and forseeing that, if I neglected 
that opportunity, I might meet with no other, I availed myself of it r 
and sailed, as stated, on the 28th of May. I speedily had cause to 
regret my precipitation in choosing such a ship. The cabin not 
fifteen feet square, was destined to accommodate in a voyage which 
would occupy from sixty to ninety days, twenty passengers. * 

* When the horrors of sea sickness were 

superadded to the other painful circumstances attending my situa- 
tion, my suffering became greater than I can describe. Deprived 
of every comfort, with not ten feet square for exercise, a pestilential 
air, and more offensive smell pervading every part of the ship ; and 
even without the most common medicines. I assure you, Sir, that 
death would have been no unwelcome visiter. I was seized with a 
high fever, and in ten days reduced, in my own opinion, and in that 
of those around me, to the brink of the grave. At this time we 
spoke an American ship from New-York, bound to Antwerp ; the 



TRISTAM BURGES. 275 

Captain, who was likewise ill, was bearing for Fayal, in the Azores, 
and by great persuasion was induced to take me on board in a mis- 
erable condition. Two days after this removal, my new Captain 
recovered his indisposition, and resumed his course for Antwerp. 
Having no inclination to visit Holland, I determined to avail myself 
of the next ship that we might speak, and return to the United 
States, or go to England. From the time I boarded the vessel in 
which I then was, I had begun slowly to recover, from the superior 
comforts of its accommodations. On the 20th of June we spoke the 
brig Olive, from New-York to this port, and the Captain consenting 
to receive me, I arrived in Liverpool on the 1st instant, having been 
at sea thirty-three days. The despatches which were entrusted to 
my care, I forwarded to Mr. Forbes, in charge of Captain Hinman, 
of the William Tell, to whom he was consigned ; stating the reasons 
of my not bearing them in person, and requesting him to forward 
those for Mr. Raguet, at Rio. If the William Tell goes safely, the 
despatches will safely reach their destination. 

These, Sir, are the circumstances which have brought me to 
England, and I hope that they are. such as to excuse my abandon- 
ment of my charge. As I am here, I have determined to devote a 
few weeks to the purpose of seeing the country, after which I shall 
have the pleasure of giving you, in person, a more detailed account 
of my voyage. 

With high respect, your obedient servant, 

JOHN H. PLEASANTS. 

Extract of a letter from Mr. Clay to Mr. Hamilton, Chairman of the 
Committee of Retrenchment. 

' " It was not believed that the visitation of Providence with which 
he was afflicted, ought to deprive him of all allowance for expenses, 
and all compensation for services ; but it was not thought right 
that the per diem should be continued during the whole period of 
his absence from home, and until his return to New- York, on the 
22d October, 1825. It was therefore limited to the 22d August, 
1825. That being the time when it was estimated he might have 
returned to the United States, if; after abandoning the voyage to 
South America, he had sought an opportunity of coming home, 
instead of proceeding to Europe. It was within the discretion of 



276 SPEECHES OF 

the Department to have compensated him as the bearer of despatches 
from Mr. King ; but it was not deemed proper to make him any 
allowance for that service." 

Were these explanations satisfactory ? What did the Committee 
say then ? These are their words : 

" Amidst the numerous appointments of messengers made by the 
present Administration, they will select the account of J. H. Pleas- 
ants, editor of the Richmond Whig, because that case, in their esti- 
mation, presents the most flagrant example of abuse. 

" Either his despatches were, or were not of importance ; if they 
were of importance, like a soldier on post, no consideration should 
have induced him to have deserted them ; if they were of no higher 
importance than to have rendered it safe that they should be con- 
fided to the Captain of an ordinary merchant vessel, then they should 
have gone through this channel, and Mr. Pleasants ought not to 
have been appointed." 

Sir, Daniel P. Cook was pursued by the gentleman, because he 
was dead ; John H. Pleasants was in like manner pursued, because 
he was alive. 

The case of Mr. Brooks is another on this record. He was a 
clerk in the office of the Treasury. Grown old, and becoming 
enfeebled, his fellow clerks, with a generosity of purpose peculiar 
to themselves, performed his duties in the hours of recess, by extra 
labor, and permitted this aged and destitute man to receive one half 
of the salary. This instance of redoubled diligence and charitable 
provision for a superannuated fellow-laborer in these generous men, 
is set down in the gentleman's diary of abuses, and the Executive is 
censured, because this aged man, with his family, was not thrown 
out to perish in the streets. 

The case of Anthony Morris, is another. He is a clerk in the 
Register's office. Mr. Morris is an old man ; is one of those few 
veterans of the revolution and old Congress now alive, who, by their 
employment and memory, connect the present with the past Govern- 
ment. He is a literary man, the only one, says Mr. Michael Nourse, 
in the office. What of that ? In consideration of his advanced age, 
infirm health, and that of his daughter, he might be absent from the 
service three months in the year — one month more than the odinary 
allowance to all the clerks. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 277 

This case, Sir, is, by the magnanimity of the gentleman, marked 
down among the instances of gross Executive abuse. What can 
the gentleman reply to these exploits of his magnanimity ? 

I leave it to the nation to compare Rufus King with John Ran- 
dolph ; and the mission of the one to England with that of the other to 
Russia. Let them also compare the recess of Mr. Brown, Minister 
to France, after years of service, and after sending home his resig- 
nation, let them, I say, run the parallel between this recess of Mr. 
Brown, for a few days to the South of France, or the lake of Geneva, 
and the Hegira of John Randolph, after a ten days' visit from St. 
Petersburg!! to some place, no one can tell where, in England. 
The people will do justice in all these cases. 

The gentleman from New-York has thrown his ponderosity into 
the scale of panegyric, thereby to render the weight of eulogy on 
the Russian Minister overwhelming — scrap iron increases the 
weight, not the value of gold. He does admit some sort of talent in 
speaking, to the parliamentary rivals of himself in eloquence — to 
Lowndes, to Clay, and to Webster. Cicero took his family name 
from a bean on some part of his face ; and doubtless many a cox- 
comb has believed himself to be an orator, because, like Cicero, he 
had a wart on his nose. Somebody has said that " Man, of all the 
animal creation alone, is endowed with vanity." Who ever saw 
the cock-sparrow measuring his wing in flight with the falcon ? I 
believe there are gentlemen in this House who could give us good 
reasons why the eloquence of the orator of Roanoke is so well re- 
collected by the gentleman from New- York. No worker on the 
Roanoke plantation has better reasons to remember the eloquence 
of his overseer. Much as that eccentric man loved his joke and 
the sarcasm, he loved his fame more ; and he would have spared 
the lash on that occasion, could he have suspected it might bring 
him into the poor condition of enduring praise at the hands of the 
gentleman from New-York. Such revenge for such a cause, is 
said to be peculiar to that gentleman, and one species of one other 
race among us. 

Has the gentleman so long been a mere adjective to the Secre- 
tary of State, that he thinks it slanderous to associate the name of 
that politician with any other accident ? Children, in these scien- 
tific times, who have advanced somewhat into the mysteries of 
chemistry, do, after beating up soap and water together in a basin, 



278 SPEECHES OF 

amuse themselves with a clean pipe in blowing up bubbles, and 
sending them off from the bowl inflated and glittering, to sail away 
for a moment, and then burst and vanish into their original nothing- 
ness. For aught I know, the Secretary may be amusing himself 
by the same innocent experiment. Who would interrupt the senti- 
mental harmony of political friendship ! For all which he is dis- 
tinguished — the character of the Secretary is fixed ; it cannot be 
elevated by any labors of the protege — it cannot be lowered by the 
efforts of others. God forbid that I should throw a straw in the 
way of any man's advancement. Their friends are daily carrying 
and laying at the gate of the treasury, those who have every thing 
to recommend them, except the piety and good works of the beggar 
in the parable ; and who all alike, desire to be fed from the crumbs 
which fall from the tables of those feasting within. " Hope defer- 
red," we find, does not "make every heart sick." Gentlemen, 
doubtless, have assurances, that each political Lazarus should be 
served in his turn. The next basket of broken meat brought out 
may be sent to New-York, and amply satisfy the appetite sharp- 
ened by years' want of it. 

The gentleman accuses me of a departure from the question, to 
bring into the debate our late treaty with the Sublime Porte. Sir, 
every thing rendering our Russian relations important, comes into 
any question concerning them. Do not our new relations with the 
great European rival of Russia demonstrate more strongly our need 
of an efficient mission at the Court of St. Petersburgh ? The Sec- 
retary has told us, in the message, that the Black Sea has been 
opened to us by our treaty with the Sublime Porte. The gentle- 
man does know full well, that the swords of our brave Russian 
friends, not only hewed their way through the Balkan, down to the 
plains of Adrianople ; but that, by the treaty of that city, they, for 
all purposes of navigation, widened the Bosphorus to breadth equal 
to the Hellespont, and thereby united the Euxine with the iEgean, 
the Levant, the whole Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and all other 
seas and oceans. What may our Russian Imperial friend say to 
us for receiving from the Turks as a boon, to say nothing of our 
promise in return, what his valor, blood, and treasure, had con- 
quered for us and all nations ? Omitting, therefore, the secret arti- 
cle, does not the opening the Euxine, either by the Russian power, 
or the Turkish treaty, mightily enhance the importance of this 



TRISTAM BURGES. 279 

question, and call imperatively on the Executive for an efficient 
mission to the Court of St. Petersburgh ? If the gentleman cannot 
perceive this, he is less a statesman than he would seem to be, and 
even much less such, if that were possible. 

But I drew my facts from unprincipled partizans, and newspaper 
rumor ! I said so before. — I drew part of the truth from the Secre- 
tary — the treaty. The other part, the secret article, from the 
newspaper. 

Sir, it has been the labor of the Secretary's life to establish news- 
papers, entitled to no credit ; and to discredit all others. He has 
founded a school, and is at the head of it. In that school, the great 
axiom is, " every thing is fair in politics," and to him are not politics 
every thing ? Let him go on to " improve the condition of the 
press." Let him extinguish the light of truth, wherever he can 
extend the ringer of power. Let him do one thing more — aided by 
his minions, no matter where — let him persuade the people, that the 
honest, the independent papers of this country, are vehicles of 
falsehood and mere rumor ; let them be, as they have been, on this 
floor, branded as false, foul and dirty, and let the member who 
quotes from their pages the history and impress of the times, be 
reproached as a blockhead, a blackguard, a slanderer — and what 
more could the Secretary of State desire, which he would not be 
sure to obtain ? Sir, such a consummation would have saved to 
Charles, the throne of Franca ; and to the patriots of that country, 
their revolution. 

I did quote the secret article in the Turkish treaty, from the 
newspapers : dare the gentleman question the truth of the quota- 
tion? Had I drawn a bow with a more advised aim, could the 
pigeon on the pole have fluttered more manifestly ? The gentle- 
man has, notwithstanding all these assertions, accused me of draw- 
ing my facts from a perjured Senator. Has it come to this ? Was 
it found necessary not to commit our first treaty with the great 
disciple of Mahomet to the Christian Senators of the United States, 
until their lips were sealed with the solemnities of an oath ? It is 
a new formula in the executive department of the Senate ; and will 
appear by the published journals of that body to have had no place 
in their proceedings until the present session. When a treaty in 
1795 was published by a Senator, against an injunction of that 
body, who accused him of perjury ? The gentleman whose mission 



280 SPEECHES OF 

is now under consideration, did, on this floor, pronounce a studied 
eulogium on Stephens Thompson Mason, the Senator who published 
that treaty. Would he eulogise perjury ? Sir, the secret article 
was published before the treaty was announced to the House, or 
sent to the Senate. The correspondence on the West India ques- 
tion was published in the same manner. Has the Secretary of 
State adopted this method, and put out his feelers, to take the 
national pulse ? 

I do not ask what warranted, but who authorized, or instructed, 
or encouraged the gentleman to connect perjury with that venera- 
ted word which designates the members of a national council, the 
most dignified and honorable on earth ? 

How could I shun insult, when such men are reviled 1 I do not 
ask by what statesman or gentleman, but by what apology for a 
man ? In what other assembly on earth has the " hoary head" 
been used as a term of reproach ? Has the gentleman passed so 
far beyond the vigor, and bloom, and modesty of juvenescence, that 
he has forgotten the amiable instinct of our nature which warns 
our youth to pay in advance that consideration to age which it may 
come to desire for itself? Though gray hairs have been held in 
respect by barbarians in all countries, and by even the most profli- 
gate and unmannered in all ages, yet, knowing that, {ab ovo ad 
plumas,) I am not disappointed in the language or demeanor of the 
gentleman from New-York. Men, better than I am, have been 
reviled in their age, by men no better than he is. ' Washington was 
called a "hoary headed incendiary," by a vagabond of almost 
unparalleled mendacity and impudence. The "bald head" is, I 
assure the gentleman, no joke ; though he seems to be original in 
using it as such. This inconvenience, or if you please, imperfec- 
tion, has been suffered by some very great men ; but quite rarely, 
if ever, has it been experienced by any very little ones. Caesar is 
said to have been more grateful to the Roman people for granting 
him the right to wear the laurel crown than for any other of their 
gifts ; because the wearing it enabled him to conceal the exterior 
baldness of his head. If it be true, as Shakspeare tells us it is, 
that what nature has scanted men in wit, she has made up to them 
in hair, then the gentleman, I believe, should he win a laurel crown, 
would never, like Caesar, have occasion to wear it, for any lack of 
that commodity. 



TRISTAM IIURGES. 281 

Who reviled the prophet, returning from the blazing translation 
of his master, with a countenance bright with the glories of opening 
Heaven, and wrapt in the mantle of Elijah — who, Sir, reviled the 
prophet for his " bald head" ? Profligate young men, boys, children 
as they are called ; the scum and sweepings of the city, and, as we 
find by the historian, fit only for food for those animals which are 
fed on offal. 

The gentleman is equally out in his ornithology, as in every 
thing else. The bird of Jove, not the vulture, is that soaring won- 
der, by men called the " Bald Eagle ;" and, Sir, never was that 
" soaring eagle, in his pride of place, hawked at, and brought down 
by the mousing owl." 

Sir, my remarks have been excursive, but I have travelled over 
no ground where some one of the gentlemen had not placed himself 
before me. If these gentlemen are out of the field, and I do not 
see them in force on any point of the argument, I will return to the 
questions made by us under our motion. 

I ask the House to inquire, whether the salary to be provided, 
under our law, by this appropriation, can be due for an illegal and 
void mission ? Ambassadors and other public ministers, though they 
may be appointed by any sovereign community, yet, being officers 
sustained and sent abroad by the laws of nations only, must be 
appointed and commissioned in conformity to those laws. The 
power of every nation is confined to its own territory ; and, there- 
fore, no officer of one nation can, as such, pass into the territory of 
any other, and there exercise any official functions whatever. 
Nations being moral persons, like individuals, have established cer- 
tain laws for their own mutual intercourse. Under these laws the 
offices of Heralds, Legates, Ambassadors, Envoys, and other public 
ministers have been created,' and by them are the powers, rights, 
and immunities of all such officers governed. Our Executive 
can, therefore, create Ministers ; but it must be seen that the 
foundation of their power to do so is laid down in the Laws of 
Nations. (Vat. Book iv. ch. 5, § 56-7.) 

" Every sovereign State, then, has a right to send and receive 
public Ministers ; they are the necessary instruments in affairs 
which sovereigns have among themselves, and to that correspond- 
ence which they have a right of carrying on. In the first chapter 
of this work may be seen what we mean by sovereign and inde- 



282 speeches or 

pendendent States which constitute the great society of nations. 
These are the powers which belong to the right of embassy, and an 
unequal alliance or treaty of protection does not take away this 
right." 

Our law providing salaries for public Ministers and Consuls, and 
the Constitution, by vesting the power of appointing them in the 
President and Senate, has neither created nor recognized any new 
power in the United States, not incident to them in common with all 
other nations ; nor can any authority be drawn from this law, or 
the Constitution itself, to appoint public Ministers or Consuls, other 
than such only as are known, acknowledged, and established by the 
great code of laws governing the intercourse of all civilized nations. 
Our Executive can, therefore, neither give powers to Consuls or 
public Ministers, nor send them abroad for purposes unknown to 
those laws. 

Should the President and Senate appoint, and send into foreign 
countries, Consuls, as France once did, with admiralty'powers on 
questions of capture under the laws of war, would these be Consuls 
under our Constitution, unless they were such under the laws and 
usages of nations ? In like manner, if the Executive create mis- 
sions, and appoint Ministers to go into the territories of other nations, 
there to hear and decide controversies arising among American 
citizens, or to try and punish crimes mutually committed by such 
citizens against each other, could we be called upon, under our law 
or Constitution, for appropriations to pay their outfits and salaries ? 
Why not ? Because the laws of nations have established no such 
Consulate, no such mission, no such Minister ; and no nation can 
create a new embassy, or one unknown to the laws of nations. 

A Sovereignty may send abroad Ambassadors, Envoys, or resi- 
dent Ministers. It may also send Envoys Extraordinary and Min- 
isters Plenipotentiary ; a grade of diplomatic functionaries compre- 
hending the especial officers of the Envoy and the resident Minister. 
These Ministers, however, must be sent for some specific purpose, 
which must be in its nature public and national, and they must be 
addressed and carry credentials of their appointment and character, 
to some designated sovereign. Sovereigns can accredit and receive 
resident Ministers ; but will it be pretended that they can accredit 
and receive non-resident Ministers ; such as, when so accredited 
and received by the Government of one nation, are thereby author- 



TRI8TAM BURGES. 



283 



ized and empowered to reside as Ministers to that nation in the 
territories of any other 1 The act of accrediting and receiving 
public Ministers is one of the highest acts of sovereignty. Under 
the confederation it was done in Congress assembled. By the 
Constitution, this august attribute of sovereignty is, I believe, in like 
manner, performed by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. Although 
the whole sovereignty of a nation be, in accrediting and receiving a 
public Minister, put in requisition by the Potentate who performs 
this great State ceremonial, yet the legal effects of this act of sove- 
reignty must be limited by whatsoever limits all the acts of each and 
every sovereignty. The Legislative, Judicial, and Executive powers 
of every nation are limited by the territory of such nation ; and, 
therefore, every exercise of any of those powers must, in their 
operations, be confined to the territory of the nation exercising 
them. The august act of sovereignty, therefore, by which a public 
Minister is accredited and received by the Executive Potentate of 
any nation, like the laws and judicial decisions of that nation, can 
have no efficiency, no legal existence, otherwise than as a mere 
matter of fact, beyond the territorial limits of that nation. When- 
ever, therefore, any sovereignty does accredit and receive a resident 
Minister, such Minister receives thereby, no powers which are not, 
like the powers of that sovereignty itself, limited, and confined to 
the national territory. For the Executive power of one nation to 
accredit and receive a Minister, as a resident Minister at its own 
Court, and in its own territory, and, at the same time, to authorize 
and empower such Minister, thereby, to reside at any other Court, 
or in any other country, would be nothing short of direct usurpation 
in the Executive doing it : for, to accredit and receive a public 
Minister, is one of the highest exercises of sovereignty ; and, there- 
fore, whenever the Executive of one nation does accredit and receive 
a Minister, to reside in the territory of another nation, such Execu- 
tive does exercise one of the highest acts of sovereignty over that 
nation. This would be usurpation. 

Before gentlemen contend, that this power of accrediting and 
receiving non-resident Ministers belongs to sovereignties, they must 
show some warrant for it from the laws of nations. Do they con- 
tend, that the right of embassy is derived from the law of nature, 
and not from the convention and agreement of nations ; and that, 
therefore, one sovereign might, by the laws of nature, receive 



284 ,spi: i:c 11 j: s o i 

Ambassadors from anotlicr, and by endorsing their credentials, 
authorize them to pass into the territories of any other nation ? It 
is admitted that Heralds, Envoys, and Ambassadors were sent, and 
received, and respected, between armies and armies, nations and 
nations, by virtue of the law of nature, I presume ; for this was 
certainly done both in Asia and Europe, before any such code as 
the law of nations existed in the world. These Ministers derived 
their powers, and protection, from the necessity of the case, and 
were compelled to go right forward on the errand for which they 
were sent ; and when that was finished, to return in the most direct 
route. These principles, as the historian of Cortez tells us, were 
found by the Spaniards to exist in Mexico. For the Envoys sent 
by him to Montezuma, were protected while they kept directly on 
their journey, and in the highway ; but if they left that path, they 
forfeited all protection. Even these necessary messengers of war, 
or peace, of congratulation, or alliance, between sovereignties, could 
receive no powers, either from those who sent them, or from those 
to whom they were sent, to sojourn for any purpose in any other 
country ; nor were they permitted to tarry, either in the place 
where their business was to be done, after that was finished, or to 
loiter on their way home. This power of non-residence, therefore, 
was wholly unknown to the intercourse of nations, derived from the 
laws of nature. 

Resident Ministers do not derive their powers from the laws of 
nature. For surely that could never require any community to 
permit the citizens of any other community, to come and reside in 
their territory, unless they become subjected to their laws and 
jurisdiction. Accordingly, we find such Ministers were unknown 
in Europe, until the sixteenth century. Ward, in that part of his 
history and foundation of the law of nations, which relates to the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, says : 

" Within this period, among the States of Europe, began that 
remarkable and characteristic custom, of entertaining Ordinary or 
Resident Embassies at one another's Courts ; an institution peculiar 
to themselves, and particularly evincive of those many distinctions 
which there arc between their Law of Nations, and that of other 
sets of people." 

" Ambassadors in Ordinary have been attributed by some to 
Ferdinand the Catholic, whose policy led him to entertain them at 



TR1STAM BURGE S. 



285 



various Courts, as a kind of honorable spies : by others, with no 
small probability, to an imitation of the Pope, who had long been in 
the habit of sending Nuncios to reside at various Courts in the ser- 
vice of religion. But, whatever was their origin, the Jurists seem 
to agree that they are not of natural right ; and, however universal 
they may since have grown, doubts about the period before us, 
were apparently entertained of their utility. Henry IV of France, 
while King of Navarre, entertained none at other Courts ; and 
Henry VII, ' that wise and politique King,' says Lord Coke, ' would 
not in all his time suffer Leiger (residence of) Ambassadours of 
any foreign King, or Prince, within his realm, nor he with them ; 
but upon occasion used Ambassadours.' So late as 1660, a mem- 
ber of the Polish Diet, asserted, that the Ambassador of France had 
no cause of residence there, and that as he did not return home, 
according to the custom of Ambassadors, he ought to be considered 
as a spy. Two years afterwards, the Deputies proposed very 
warmly to send home all Ambassadors whatever, and to make a 
law regulating the time of their stay ; and even the Dutch, who, 
one would imagine, had greater reason than the Polish nobles for 
encouraging an intercourse with foreigners, debated in 1651, how 
far this sort of embassy was of any advantage to them. The 
greater part of nations, however, have now admitted their necessity ; 
and though at the commencement of the period before us, men had 
affixed no precise ideas to what was considered as a novelty, and 
even now the admission of these embassies cannot be demanded as a 
matter of law, yet the custom is so general, and they are considered 
as so much of course, that the friendship of States can hardly be 
maintained without them. Not to send them, therefore, has been 
sometimes regarded as an affront." 

The right to send, and the power to accredit and receive resident 
Ministers at any Court, being matter of convention and agreement 
among nations, it will be found that all the causes which have con- 
spired to produce that agreement, do unite in excluding the very 
idea of accrediting and receiving non-resident Ministers. Nay, Sir, 
so unwilling have nations been to enter into any agreement, that one 
sovereignty shall have power to accredit and receive Ministers to 
reside in the territory of any other, that they have not agreed to 
protect Ambassadors, while passing through their territories in going 
to, or returning from the place of their mission. Ward, and the 



286 SPEECHES OF 

authorities quoted by him, notwithstanding Vattel is of a different 
opinion, do establish this doctrine. 

" I cannot quit this interesting and remarkable subject without 
observing, that the privileges in question have been carried by some 
to an extent even greater than that which we have been examining. 
In the treatise of Vattel, we find the following positions : That 
although the sovereign to whom an Ambassador is addressed, is 
particularly called upon to protect him in his privileges ; yet that 
the same duty extends to other sovereigns to whom he is not 
addressed, but through whose country he is obliged to pass for the 
purposes of his mission. To insult him, says Vattel, is to affront 
his master and his whole nation ; to arrest him, or to offer violence 
to his person, is to wound the rights of embassies which belong to 
every sovereign. 

" This doctrine arises out of some considerations upon the case 
of Rincon and Fregoze, Ambassadors of Francis I. of France, the 
one to the Porte, the other to Venice. These Ministers passing 
down the Po in their passage, and being suspected of bearing 
despatches prejudicial to the interests of the Emperor Charles V., 
were set upon and murdered, apparently by the orders of the Gov- 
ernor of Milan. But the Emperor, although at that time at peace 
with Francis, appears not to have been inclined to punish the authors 
of the murder. Upon this transaction Vattel observes, that it was 
an atrocious attempt against the Law of Nations ; that Francis had 
not only a very just cause for war against the Emperor, but also to 
demand the assistance of all other nations in its support. For it 
was an affair, not of two individuals, who each supposed they had 
right on their side ; but of all States whatsoever, who were inter- 
ested in maintaining the rights of Embassy. 

" It perhaps does not fall exactly within the scope of this treatise 
to examine whether this opinion is really as it is received at present. 
But we may venture to observe, that in this position Vattel stands 
sole. At least all the authors on the Law of Nations who have 
preceded him, after discussing the point at some length, have come 
to a conclusion directly the reverse of his ; and that which they 
have concluded, is supported by a great variety of cases, both of an 
ancient and a recent date. Thus Albericus Gentilis, upon this very 
case of Rincon and Fregoze, observes merely,- • ' Probrosum id Car- 
oh fuisset.' ' Sed alia Qucstio est,' adds Bynkershock, k dc jure 



TRISTAM BURGES. 287 

Logationis alia cle jure honestatisS Grotius, who followed Gentilis, 
after having given his opinions at length upon the inviolability of 
Ambassadors, says expressly, that it is only to be understood to be 
binding on those sovereigns to whom they are sent. ' Non pertinet 
ergo hcec Lex ad eos per quorum fines, non accepta venia, transeunt 
legati." 1 It is true, the non accepta venia, may be made by some to 
amount to an inviolability, provided they have passports. But it 
may be fairly questioned, whether the possession of a passport itself, 
can confer any thing more, than the common protection to which 
common aliens have a right. Bynkershoek, at least, without taking 
notice of passports at all, understands Grotius to mean, generally, 
that the privilege in question shall not have place in countries to 
which Ambassadors are not addressed. Of this opinion also, were 
Zouch Wicquefort, who has been deemed the very champion of the 
rights of Ambassadors, and who declares that the case of Rincon 
and Fregoze, though an atrocius murder, was not a violation of the 
Law of Nations, as to Embassies ; Huber, and lastly, Bynkershoek, 
who had particular occasion to examine the point, but a short time 
before Vattel. The subject came before the latter in considering 
the meaning of the passage, which formed .part of a declaration of 
the States General in favor of the inviolability of Ambassadors ; 
and the difficulty was, to know whether the word ' Passerende,' 
was applicable to Ambassadors to other powers, passing through 
Holland, or confined simply to those addressed to the States, coming, 
residing, and passing away, or retiring. To solve this difficulty, he 
inquired into the opinions of the jurists concerning the point in dis- 
cussion, and determined that it applied solely to Ambassadors who 
were addressed to the States. 

" Selim II., in the sixteenth century, being at peace with Venice, 
but meditating war, sent a Minister to the King of France to know 
his sentiments of it. He endeavored to pass through Venice, but 
was arrested, and the French Ambassador there, and the King 
himself, claimed his liberty as addressed to them. But they were 
forced to yield to the arguments of the Republic ; 'that a sovereign 
power need not recognize a public Minister as such, unless it is to 
him that his credentials are addressed. 

" In 1672, Elizabeth of England, having reasons to be jealous of 
the machinations of the French in Scotland, arrested all Frenchmen 
passing through the kingdom to that country without a passport. 



288 a p e e c ii e s o i 

Among these was Du Croc, the French Ambassador to Scotland, 
and his Court complained loudly of this as a violation of the Law 
of Nations. But Walsingham, the Secretary, pleaded, that it was 
Du Croc's own fault for not taking a passport ; he might justly be 
detained; and with this plea the French were content, notwithstand- 
ing his quality of Ambassador." 

Sir, what is the mission invented in this case by Mr. Secretary 
Van Buren ; and what the diplomatic character of the Minister now 
under consideration ? This gentleman was, by order of the Exec- 
utive, carried out from Norfolk to Russia, in a national ship, with 
every circumstance of high respect, and at a cost of not less than 
forty thousand dollars for his passage. He arrived at St. Peters- 
burg ; was presented to his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Rus- 
sia ; exhibited his credentials ; was accredited as Envoy Extraor- 
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at that 
Court ; retired and took his departure from the Russian territories, 
all in the short space of ten days. It is contended by gentlemen 
who support this appropriation, that he is our Minister. If so, he 
must be our Minister non-resident at the Court of St. Petersburg ; 
for it is too much to say, that stopping ten days at that city, would 
make him. in legal acceptation, resident there ; but that six months 
residence in England will not render him legally a non-resident at 
Petersburgh. If, then, he can be our Minister at all, he must be our 
non-resident Minister. He has been sent to St. Petersburg, to be 
accredited there by his Imperial Majesty ; and by form of being 
thus accredited, we are gravely told by the Secretary of State, that 
he has acquired the rights of a Minister of the United States wher- 
ever he may choose to reside. Sir, will nations admit this kind of 
non-resident, this migratory mission, this diplomatic gossipping. 
This doctrine of " no locality," so essential in the Secretary's consti- 
tutional creed, to the existence of a national road, he will find does 
not belong to the character of a resident Minister, and really has no 
place among nations, out of the Cabinet so adroitly conducted by 
himself. 

If gentlemen still contend that Mr. Randolph is our Envoy Extra- 
ordinary, and Minister Plenipotentiary, non-resident at the Court of 
St. Petersburg, they must contend, that wheresoever he does reside, 
he is still vested with the high diplomatic qualities and attributes, 
which, bv the laws of nations, belong to such a public Minister. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



289 



What are these ? They are comprehended in two very expressive 
words : personal inviolability. Not only are his person and effects 
exempted from all legal diligence, but whosoever shall treat him 
with insult, or disrespect, is liable to be punished. A public Minis- 
ter cannot be sued for a contract, or a trespass ; he cannot be pros- 
ecuted for a feloiry. If he commit homicide, with every circum- 
stance of malice, or conspire with traitors to overthrow the Govern- 
ment to which he is sent, he can neither be punished, nor prosecuted, 
nor even questioned concerning these crimes. Vattel asserts : 

" The necessity and right of embassies being established, (See 
Chap. 2 of his book,) the perfect security, the inviolability of 
Ambassadors and other Ministers is a certain consequence of it ; 
for if their person be not defended from violence of every kind, the 
right of embassies becomes precarious, and success uncertain. A 
right to the end, is a right to the necessary means. Embassies 
then, being of such great importance in the universal society of 
nations, and so necessary to their common well being, the person 
of Ministers charged with this embassy is to be as sacred and invio- 
lable among all nations. (See Book II. § 218.) Whoever offers 
any violence to an Ambassador, or any other public Minister, not 
only injures the sovereign whom this Minister represents, but he 
also hurts the common safety, and well being of nations ; he becomes 
guilty of an atrocious crime towards the whole world." 

This doctrine is further confirmed : 

" In fine, if an Ambassador could be indicted for common tres- 
passes, be criminally prosecuted, taken into custody, punished ; if 
he might be sued in civil cases, the consequence will often be, that 
he will want the power, leisure, or freedom of mind, which his mas- 
ter's affairs require. How will the dignity of the representation be 
supported in such a subjection ? From all these reasons, it is im- 
possible to conceive, that the Prince, in sending an Ambassador, or 
any other Minister, intends to submit him to the authority of a 
Foreign Power. This is a fresh reason, which fixes the independency 
of a public Minister If it cannot be reasonably presumed that his 
master means to submit him to the authority of a sovereign, to whom 
he is sent, this sovereign in receiving the Minister, consents to 
admit him on the footing of his independency. And thus subsists 
between the two Princes a passive convention, giving new force to 
the natural obligation." 

M* 



290 SPEECHES OF 

" In 1567, Leslie, Bishop of Ross, came to the Court of Elizabeth, 
as Ambassador of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was then detained a 
prisoner by her royal cousin. This man in taking care of the con- 
cerns of Mary, conspired with certain English noblemen to depose 
Elizabeth, and place Mary on the throne of England. The plot 
was discovered. The Duke of Norfolk and others were executed 
for treason ; but, though Elizabeth dared afterwards to steep her 
hand in the blood of her royal captive, and thereby to violate all 
other laws, human and divine, she dared not violate the laws of 
nations, by punishing the Ambassador of the unfortunate Queen of 
Scotland. In 1564, Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador in England, 
conspired to dethrone the Queen by introducing foreign troops into 
the country. This conspiracy being discovered, the Court of Eliz- 
abeth took the opinions, as Ward tells us, of the celebrated Albericus 
Gentilis, then in England, and of Hottoman in France, another great 
civilian, concerning the manner of proceeding against Mendoza. 
They both asserted that an Ambassador, though a conspirator, could 
not be put to death ; but must be remanded to his principal for pun- 
ishment. In consequenee of this, Mendoza was simply ordered to 
depart the realm ; and a commission sent to Spain to prefer a com- 
plaint against him. 

" Three years afterwards, L'Aubaspine, the French Ambassador, 
in his devotion to Mary, conspired not only to dethrone, but to 
assassinate Elizabeth. He actually hired a ruffian from Newgate, 
to perform this deed of atrocity. Some disagreement concerning 
the means to be used, induced delay in the execution, and led to a 
discovery. When the Ambassador was called upon for examina- 
tion, he replied, ' I will hear no accusation to the prejudice of the- 
privileges of Ambassadors ;' and though Lord Burleigh reproached 
him for his turpitude, yet the English Court never thought of trying 
him for treason." — Ward 314-15. 

Sir, such are the high and distinguishing attributes and charac- 
teristics of " Ambassadors and other public Ministers," and the laws 
of nations. These immunities and privileges belong to Mr. Randolph, 
if he be the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of 
the United States, resident at the Court of his Imperial Majesty, the 
Emperor of Russia, or in any other part of his territory. We know, 
however, that he is non-resident there ; and are we prepared to say, 
that if he acquired these immunities by his visit to that Court and 






T R I S T AM B U R G E 



291 



his being accredited there, he now carries them with him wherever 
he may make it his pleasure to sojourn ? If he be a public minister, 
he has these immunities ; if he be without them, then is he no public 
Minister. What lawyer in this House, or nation, or indeed in the 
civilized world, would pledge his character upon the allegation that 
John Randolph might, like the Bishop of Ross, Mendoza, and 
L'Aubaspine, join a conspiracy to dethrone and assassinate the 
sovereign of England ; and, like them, when questioned for treason, 
allege his immunities as public Minister, and refuse to " hear any 
accusation to the prejudice of the privileges of Ambassadors ?" 
Sir, the absurdity is too enormous to be entertained by any man of 
sane mind and ordinary understanding. If, then, he have not these 
immunities, he is not a public Minister of the United States ; and it 
is a mockery of the nation to call on their Representatives to appro- 
priate money for the payment of his. salary. 

We are not to suppose that a public Minister, because he is 
exempted from legal process in the country to which he is sent, is, 
therefore, not amenable to any laws whatever, for any part of his 
conduct. He is not within the legal jurisdiction of the country where 
he is accredited, although at the capital and Court of the sovereign, 
and protected by his whole civil and military power ; but he carries 
with him the jurisdiction of his own country ; and it is because he 
is, by force of the Law of Nations, within the jurisdiction of his own 
country, that he cannot be within that of the country where he is 
accredited and received as a public Minister. Those who travel 
the ocean in your fleets, or ships and vessels, either the mercantile 
or naval, though their " home seems to be on the deep," yet, by 
the force of law, are they within the body of the country, and dis- 
trict of our country, from which they departed on the voyage, or to 
which they may return, when that is finished. Their contract of 
trespasses, or crime, though done on the deep sea, in the most distant 
ocean, yet are within the legal jurisdiction of their country. In 
like manner, your public Ministers, to whatever Court you send 
them, and wherever they are accredited, carry with them, and are 
there surrounded by, the jurisdiction of the United States. The 
highest officer of justice in the country, when they are received, 
when he steps over the threshold of their house, becomes, as in the 
District of Columbia, an ordinary citizen ; and the imperial state 
warrant in his pocket is whitened into blank paper, and can no 



292 SPEECHES O F 

more be executed by him there on a public Minister, than it* he 
stood on this floor with the same warrant in his hand, he could, by 
virtue of it, arrest me or you, Mr. Speaker. 

I have not spoken without authority on this subject. Ward tells 
us, page 297, 

" An Ambassador neither knows, nor submits to the laws of the 
country to which he is sent. He goes not on his own account, on 
private business, or private pleasure ; but as the representative of 
another ; as the presentation of the dignity, privileges, power, and 
rights which others would enjoy, had they continued within their 
own precincts. And thus by consent, and a sense of mutual ex- 
change, he is allowed to return and personify, if I may so call it, 
all these high privileges in the very bosom of another community, 
for the sake of transacting better the whole business of the world." 
Vattel says, page 548 : 

" But it is not on account of the sacredness of their person that 
Ambassadors cannot be sued ; it is because they do not depend on 
the jurisdiction of the country whither they are sent ; and the solid 
reasons for this independency may be seen above. Let us here 
add, that it is entirely proper, and even necessary, that an Ambas- 
sador should not be liable to any judicial prosecution, even for a 
civil cause, that he may not be disturbed in the exercise of his civil 
functions." 

He further tells us, page 564 : 

" The independency of the Ambassador would be very imperfect, 
and his security weakly founded, did not the house in which he 
lives enjoy an entire exemption, so as to be inaccessible to the ordi- 
nary officers of justice. The Ambassador might be disturbed under 
a thousand pretences : his secrets might be discovered by searching 
his papers, and his person exposed to insults. Thus all the reasons 
which establish his independence and inviolability, concur likewise 
to secure the freedom of his house." 

This independence and exemption from foreign jurisdiction 
belongs to the public functionary, not to the man : is given for the 
public, and not for his own benefit ; and, therefore, cannot be laid 
aside, even so far as to become a party in a suit, while he continues 
to be a Minister, without the consent of his master. To this effect. 
Vattel says, page 549 : 



T IlISTAM B U R G E S. 293 

" But if the Ambassador will partly recede from his independ- 
ency, and subject himself in civil affairs to the jurisdiction of the 
country, he unquestionably may, provided it be done with his mas- 
ter's consent. But without such a consent, the Ambassador has no 
right to waive privileges in which the dignity and service of his 
sovereign are concerned, which are founded on the master's rights, 
and made for his advantage, and not for that of the Minister." 

Has Mr. Randolph carried the jurisdiction of the United States 
with him into England ; and does that jurisdiction now surround 
him, as it does each one of us, and exclude from his person, his 
effects, and his house, all English jurisdiction ? The case of the 
Russian Ambassador in England, is in point. It happened in the 
time of Queen Anne, 1707. The Russian Ambassador at her 
Court was arrested in the street for debt, taken out of his coach, 
and carried by the tipstaff to a common spunging house, and 
detained there until he was bailed by the Earl of Feverdam. By 
the laws of England, these proceedings against the Ambassador 
were void, but no adequate punishment had been by law provided 
for such offenders. Ward tells us on this subject, pages 299, 300, 
301, that on this occasion the statute 7 Ann. c. 12, was enacted ; 
that 

" The preamble, however, having merely observed, that the 
Muscovite Ambassador had been taken out of "his coach, by 
violence, in contempt of the protection granted by her Majesty, 
without taking notice of the breach of the Law of Nations, ' which 
is superior and antecedent to all municipal laws ;' the foreign Min- 
isters in London met again together, and procured the addition of 
these words, ' Contrary to the law of nations, and in prejudice of 
the rights and privileges which Ambassadors and other public Min- 
isters, authorized and received as such, have at all times been 
thereby possessed of, and which ought to be kept sacred and invio- 
lable.' With this act of Parliament elegantly engrossed, and an 
apology for not being able to punish the persons of those who had 
affronted his Minister, the Czar, who had at first insisted upon their 
deaths, was at length induced to be content ; and thus ended this 
delicate affair." 

Should Mr. Randolph, like the Russian Minister at the Court of 
Queen Anne, be arrested for debt, and carried to a spunging house 
for lack of bail, could he claim protection as an Envoy Extraordi- 



294 SPEECHES OF 

nary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States ? Sir, that 
statute was provided for those " ministers who were authorized and 
received as such," not in other countries, but in England. This 
gentleman can take no protection under it. He has abandoned the 
jurisdiction of the United States for that of England, the high im- 
munities and labors of a public Minister, for the comforts and retire- 
ment of a private gentleman, in some farm house, or inconsiderable 
inn in the county of Suffolk. The American arms or ensign he has 
never placed over the door, or he has ordered them pulled down, 
and thrown into the garret. Who can point out the place where the 
American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, non- 
resident at Russia, may now be found ? Will gentlemen contend, 
that by some new fiction of diplomatic law he is still our Minister, 
and that we are bound in behalf of the nation, to make this appro- 
priation for his salary ? 

There is another view of this part of the question, which truth 
and justice do not permit me to pass by in silence. Let the admis- 
sion be made, for the purpose of the argument, that such a minister 
may, by the law of nations, be accredited and received by a foreign 
power. If so, he must have been nominated and appointed as 
a Minister of that character. Any sovereign State may send 
abroad, and have received, several kinds of public Ministers. The 
first in rank is an Ambassador. He is not only a mandatary, as all 
others are, but he is also the Representative of the sovereignty 
which sends him ; and in the presence of the sovereign receiving, 
he stands as one king does in the presence of another, without 
uncovering his head. The Envoy is another grade of Minister ; 
and is charged with the doing of some particular act, which, when 
he has finished, he returns home. Resident Ministers are in rank 
below Envoys, and are charged with such relations of their Govern- 
ments where they reside, as require the constant attention of some 
mandatary or agent for their care and supervision. The Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary is a high mandatary, 
empowered to do whatever may be done by any other Minister, 
except the representation of the sovereignty, which has sent him 
abroad. He is inferior in rank to none but the Ambassador. Com- 
missioners are sent out on special agencies, and are received and 
accredited as Ministers of an inferior grade. The Charge d' Affairs 



TRISTAM BURGE3. 



295 



is accredited as such ; and takes the duties though not the rank of 
resident Minister. 

If, Sir, in addition to all these, foreign Courts could accredit and 
receive non-resident Ministers, or such as might reside, either at 
such Courts, or wherever else they might choose, and continue to be 
Ministers wherever they might go or reside ; then is it not manifest 
that they must have been designated as Ministers of this character, 
both in their appointment and in their commission ? The nomina- 
tion made by the President to the Senate, is the foundation of the 
mission ; and it must fully set forth the name of the man to be sent, 
the place to which he is to be sent, the purpose for which he is 
sent, and the ministerial character of him who is sent. Without all 
these, how can the Senate advise and consent to his appointment ? 
Accordingly, we find that the President made this nomination with 
all these distinguishing characteristics. 

. " Tuesday, May 25, 1830. — The following message was received 
from the President of United States, by Mr. Donelson, his Sec- 
retary. 

" To the Senate of the United States : Gentlemen : I nominate 
John Randolph, of Roanoke, Virginia, to be Envoy Extraordinary 
and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of his 
Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, in the place of Henry 
Middleton, of South Carolina, recalled." 

Was this man nominated to be Minister at the Court of his 
Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, and elsewhere ? No, Sir, 
it was at Russia in place of Mr. Middleton ; and at that place only. 
If, therefore, a non-resident Minister could, by any law of nations, 
be sent abroad, or could have been advised and consented to by the 
Senate, Mr. Randolph could not have been so sent, for he was not 
so nominated. Did the Senate advise or consent to this gentleman's 
appointment to any other ministerial office than that to which he 
was nominated. Let the record answer : 

" The Senate proceeded to consider the message appointing John 
Randolph to office ; and 

" Resolved, That they do advise and consent to the appointment 
of John Randolph, agreeably to his nomination." 

If the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, appoint public Ministers, then the appointment of this man 
could not differ from the nomination made by the President, and 



296 SPEECHES OF 

the advice and consent thereupon had and given by the Senate. If, 
then, lie might have been accredited and received at the Court of 
his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, as a non-resident 
Minister, he could not have been so sent, for he was not so 
appointed. 

After this gentleman had been nominated, confirmed, and ap- 
pointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the 
Court of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, could his 
commission differ from his appointment ? Could the Secretary 
of State, from this record, make out and deliver to him a commis- 
sion as Ambassador, and thus send this peculiar gentleman to the 
most splendid Court of Europe, to represent the entire sovereignty 
of these United States ; an office of honor and high dignity, which 
has never hitherto been, by this Government, conferred on any of 
those talented and highly accomplished statesmen, who, as public , 
Ministers, have gone abroad from this country ? If, by the laws of 
nations, a non-resident Minister could be received by a foreign 
power, could this gentleman, under this appointment, receive the 
commission, and enjoy the immunities of such a Minister ? Ap- 
pointed Minister at the Russian Court, could he, honestly, and 
according to the record, have been commissioned at this Court and 
elsewhere ? I beg leave to read the formula in like cases, (1 Vol. 
Lym.) addressed by the Secretary of State to the appointed Minis- 
ter. " Sir, with this letter, (among other things,) you will receive, 
1 — A commission as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary. 2 — A letter of credence to the king. 3 — A passport for 
yourself and family." Has the Secretary given him such a com- 
mission ? Beyond question he has given it. This is not all. He 
tells us in the message, under the name of the President, that he has 
also given him a commission at the Court of his Imperial Majesty, 
and elsewhere. If this be true, and Mr. Randolph is now travel- 
ling or sojourning under it, he has abandoned the appointment made 
by the President, under advisement of the Senate ; and has ceased to 
be Minister of the United States at that Court ; and if he be a Min- 
ister at all, he is a Minister elsewhere ; and as such, is literally the 
Envoy Extraordinary, and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Secre- 
tary, not of the President and Senate, or of the nation. 

The same difficulties must have attended this mission at the Rus- 
sian Court. The credentials given to Mr. Randolph must show his 



TRISTAM BURGES. 297 

ministerial character ; and in that character alone could he have 
been received by the Emperor. So we are told by Vattel, p. 523. 

" Among the several characters established by custom, it is the 
sovereign's choice with which he will invest his minister, which is 
made known in the credentials which he delivers to the sovereign to 
whom he is sent. Letters of credence are the instruments which 
authorize and establish the Minister in his character with the 
prince to whom they are addressed. If this prince receives the 
Minister, he can receive him only in the quality attributed to him 
in his credentials. They are, as it were, his general letter of 
attorney, his mandate patent, mandatum, manifestum" 

Had this gentleman two sets of credentials, two commissions, and 
did he exhibit them both to the Emperor ? Did he, in fact, tell his 
Majesty, " Your summer is too hot ; your winter will be too cold. 
The fur which has warmed a bear, may warm a Russian monarch, 
but it can never warm me. My constitution is worn out in 
the public service. I shall be sick — I am sick. I must re- 
side elsewhere, any where, in England, in France ; in a more 
genial climate than that of your majesty's capital." It is too much 
to be supposed, even of Mr. Randolph. He presented his at cre- 
dentials and commission. His elsewhere credentials and commis- 
sion were retained for use when he should arrive, I know not where, 
but certainly elsewhere. 

Sir, our law has been evaded ; the Constitution has been evaded ; 
the laws of nations have been evaded ; the President, the Senate, 
and our Imperial Friend have been deceived ; and the Minister 
himself, suffering himself to be made a party to this imposition, has 
fallen into the devices of the Secretary ; has been got out of the 
country on a mission, illegal,, void, and nugatory ; and is now the 
deplorable dupe of state artifice, cruising about Europe, like some 
contraband trader, under a double commission, and with two sets 
of papers. 

Will it be contended by the supporters of this appropriation, that 
this gentleman will, after months of recess from the public service 
at the Russian Court, return thither, and by years of efficient labor, 
efface all memory of this interval of idleness and neglect ? What 
cause, Sir, have we to believe he will ever return to St. Peters- 
burgh ? Observe what has the Secretary told us in the message : 
" If, as it is to be hoped, the improvement of his health should be 



298 SPEECHES U 1 

such as to justify him in doing so, he will repair to St. Petersburg h. 
and resume the discharge of his official duties." This does not 
affirm that he will return ; it affirms that it is to be hoped he may 
be well enough to do so. According to the message, a want of 
health took him away from that Court. Different reasons were 
given for those facts, by the official papers. By the Richmond 
Official, the summer heat compelled his departure ; by the Official 
in this city, the approaching cold of the then coming winter drove 
him to seek a more genial climate. In Russia, summer is said to 
burst from the frozen bosom of winter, like a sheet of flame from 
Mount Hecla ; and to spread its warming, blazing, burning influ- 
ence at once over the whole region. At times, so intense is the 
temperature, that the pine forests take fire from the heat of the 
atmosphere. I have read a Russian traveller, who says vegetation 
is so rapid, that, on a soil thawed not more than one foot deep, the 
ground is ploughed, the wheat sown, grown, ripened, and harvested 
in six weeks. Winter comes on the country as summer came, 
extinguishing at once the heat of the air and earth, by throwing 
down and spreading out, one vast, sheet of snow, from Cronstadt to 
Kamschatka. The genial and joyous airs of spring, the sober and 
gladsome sunshines and shades of autumn, known under the Italian 
skies of Virginia, have never visited, and can never visit a Russian 
climate. Unless, therefore, this gentleman can visit Russia in sum- 
mer, when he has been compelled to leave it ; or in winter, when 
he dare not approach it, he cannot again return to St. Petersburgh. 
What reason had the Secretary for the hopes expressed in the mes- 
sage, that the renovated health of Mr. Randolph might induce 
him to return? Permit me to quote from one of his speeches, 
delivered on this floor, more than two years ago : 

"Sir, what can the country do for me? As for power, what 
charm can it have for one like me ? If power had been my object, 
I must have been less sagacious than my worst enemies have repre- 
sented me to be, if I had not obtained it. * * * * What is 
office ? What, Sir, to drudge in your laboratories in the Depart- 
ments, or be at the tail of your corps diplomatic in Europe ? (Ex- 
iled to Siberia.) Alas ! Sir, in my condition, a cup of cold water 
would be more acceptable. What can the country give me that I 
do not possess in the confidence of such constituents as no man ever 
had before? I can retire to my old patrimonial trees, where I may 



T R I S T A M BURGES. 299 

sec the sun rise and set in peace. * * * * I shall retire upon 
my resources — I will go back to the bosom of my constituents. * 
* * * And shall I give up them and this ? And for what ? 
For the heartless amusements, and vapid pleasures, and tarnished 
honors of this abode of splendid misery, of shabby splendor ? for a 
clerkship in the War Office, or a Foreign Mission, to dance attend- 
ance abroad instead of at home — or even for a Department itself? 
Sir, thirty years make sad changes in a man. * * * * I feel 
that I hang to existence by a single hair — that the sword of Damo- 
cles is suspended over me." 

Will this gentleman, think you, return to Russia, hanging to 
existence by a single hair ? Will he travel from region to region 
of Europe, with this sword of Damocles suspended over his head 
by a tie equally attenuated ? Never, Sir, never ; and if he never 
do return, as he most certainly never will, when does his mission 
end, if it did not end when he left the Russian Court ? If this mis* 
sion ever had a legal beginning, when, or by what act, may it be 
ended ? Vattel has told us, page 559, that all missions end : — first, 
when the Minister is recalled ; second, when he is dismissed ; third, 
when he has finished the business on which he was sent ; and 
fourth, in a word, whenever he is obliged to go away, on any ac- 
count whatever, his functions cease. By the law of nations, which 
we cannot control, his mission was at an end when " he went 
away" from the Court and country to which he was appointed and 
sent ; and neither the mandate of the Secretary, nor Congressional 
enactment, can continue him a Minister one moment after he has, 
by the law of nations, ceased to be one. Can we then' appropriate 
money for the salary of such a Minister ? Not unless we make 
ourselves parties to this imposition ; and, in the name of the nation, 
guarantee this fraudulent diplomacy. 

Gentlemen may place this salary on the ground of a quantum 
meruit, and tell us Mr. Randolph is entitled to reeeive it, and we 
arc bound to make the appropriation, because he has performed 
services at Russia for which he deserves to have this compensation. 
What services was it intended he should perform ; what in fact did 
he perform ; what, in so short a time, could he perform ? We are 
told by the honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations, (Mr. Archer,) and no man ever doubts his candor and 
correctness, that Mr. Randolph did not perform what he was sent 



300 



SPEECHES O I 



out to do. However meritorious that might be when done, he surely 
does not deserve any compensation for not doing it. How did this 
gentleman represent, when presented at that Court, the form and 
body of our national character, by his appearance, his manners, 
conversation, and intercourse with the Imperial Family, the Court, 
and Foreign Ministers, then and there representing the various sove- 
reignties of Europe and Asia ? I could give the history of these ten 
days ; this, which will, in our Russian diplomacy, be called the 
times of Randolph ; could give it from the most authentic testimoni- 
als ; not from rumor ; but from the voice of honorable, intelligent 
men, who, being there at the time, have since returned to this 
country, and from letters with which the Russian correspondence 
of our Atlantic cities has been crowded. All these speak but one 
language, express but one feeling — the irrepressible feeling of 
wounded and mortified patriotism. All these, instead of finding 
merit in this man's diplomatic achievements, look on them with 
unutterable anguish ; and have no consolation under the jibes and 
jeerings of foreign nations, but the memory of the past, when the 
dignified character of our Republic was represented in Europe by 
Franklin, Jay, Adams, Livingston, Jefferson, and Pinckney. No- 
thing, Sir, but national pride, has withholden this narrative from the 
ears of the world ; for who would give a tongue to obloquy against 
his own country ? I will, in silence, pass over the doings of this 
gentleman's ten days of diplomacy ; nor would I have alluded to 
them, did not his friends draw on these very doings as a fund of 
merit, entitling him to this compensation. The doings of ten days ! 
What, Sir, could he do in that time ? Why, in that time, the dis- 
cipline of the Russian tailor could scarcely have reduced the 
rigid outline of this man into the exterior of diplomacy. He per- 
formed services for his country, in this brief period ! Ca3sar, with 
the eagle wing of pursuit, and the lion strength of conquest, overrun 
Bythinia, and subdued the son of the great Mithridates in a few 
weeks. This conqueror might, in the confidence of friendship, 
venture, with poetic licence, to write to his associate at Rome, 
veni villi vici." Should our Russian Envoy write the history of his 
ten days, he might, without poetry, place all, for which he can 
have any claim on his country, in as few, and almost the same 
words; veni vidi obrvi, would fill up the whole quantum meruit of 
his Mission. 



TRISTAM B URGES. 301 

If it bo contended, that this gentleman is entitled to a pro rata 
compensation for the time spent in going to Russia, and while there, 
as freight is apportioned and paid, when a cargo is, by casualty, 
transported a part only of the voyage, I am ready to agree, that 
this alone is the ground on which any thing whatever can be claimed. 
This, however, will fail, if the mission be, in its inception, contra jus 
gentium; and therefore void. If there be any part of this mission 
sound and legal ; if this gentleman has believed he was, in good 
faith, in the public service, in the name of justice let him be paid for 
all that time, although nothing was effected beneficial to the nation. 
On this ground I am ready to support, though I cannot move to 
make any modification of the motion under consideration. 

Last of all, I come to inquire, whether this salary can be due, 
because this mission, and the conduct of the Minister under it, may 
be especially beneficial to the Secretary of State. Was this gentle- 
man appointed with any view, or expectation that he could render 
diplomatic services at the Court of Russia ? Surely not. For in 
the first place the performance of such services required his resi- 
dence at the Russian Court. This is evident from the nature of 
those services, as may be seen from reading the ordinary instruc- 
tions to all resident Ministers ; Lyman's Diplomacy, vol. 1, pages 
15, 16, 17 : 

" Among the most important general duties of a Minister of the 
United States in foreign countries, is that of transmitting to his 
Government accurate information of the policy and views of the 
Government to which he is accredited, and of the character and 
vicissitudes of its important relations with other European powers. 
To acquire this information, and particularly to discriminate between 
that which is authentic, and that which is spurious, requires steady 
and impartial observation ; a free, though cautious correspondence 
with the other Ministers of the United States abroad ; and friendly, 
social relations with the members of the diplomatic body at the same 
Court." 

" In your correspondence with this Department, besides, general 
and particular politics of the country, where you arc to reside, you 
will be mindful, so far as you may find it convenient, to collect and 
transmit information of every kind, relating to the Government, 
finances, commerce, arts, sciences, and condition of the nation, which 
is not already known, and may be made useful to our own country. 



302 SPEECHES OF 

Books of travels, containing statistical, or other imibrmation of 
political importance ; historical works, not before in circulation ; 
authentic maps, published by authority of the State, or distinguished 
by extraordinary reputation ; and publications of new and useful 
discoveries — will always be acceptable acquisitions to this Depart- 
ment." 

" Among the ordinary functions of an American Minister in 
Europe, is that of giving passports to citizens of the United States, 
who apply for them. They sometimes receive applications for such 
passports from the subjects of other countries ; but as these are not 
regularly valid, they should be granted only under special circum- 
stances, as may sometimes occur in the case of foreigners coming to 
the United States." 

Do not these labors require residence at the Court of his Imperial 
Majesty? Look into the published diplomatic correspondence of 
our former Ministers. What treasures of information ! What 
monuments of ability, labor, and diligence ! 

This gentleman could not reside at the Russian capital. Neither 
his health, his constitution, his age, nor the climate would permit 
such residence. As well might the Secretary have plucked up one 
of his patrimonial oaks, and transplanted it on the banks of the 
Neva, with any expectation that it might take root there, and live, 
and flourish in the summer heats and wintry storms of Russia. 

So utterly out of the question was all expectation of public service 
from the appointment of this gentleman, that, although it must have 
been known such service could be rendered without residence, yet 
he received full permission to leave the Court and Empire of Russia, 
and reside wherever he might choose to reside. 

Mr. Randolph was, of all men, the last which a wise and judicious 
policy would have selected to represent the interests of our nation 
at the Russian Court. He had publicly expressed opinions concern- 
ing that Court and the Imperial family, most derogatory and 
degrading. Suffer me to read these opinions, from one of his 
speeches, published under his own corrections and supervisal, in 
( rales and Seaton's Register of Debates, vol. 2, part 1, pages 392-3. 

"Now, Sir, the gentleman from North Carolina is so extremely 
unreasonable as to wisli — he will pardon my reproof, I hope — as t<> 
wish to break the lineal succession of our monarch's, and to reduce 
us to something like the barbarism of Russia, where they haven't 



TRISTAM B URGES. 



803 



yet perfected themselves in the A B C of legitimacy ; a regular 
indefeasible succession of tyrants ; although they claim the head of 
the table of the Holy Alliance — where there is hardly one instance 
of the lineal heir succeeding to the throne, without regicide and 
parricide, (which the case implies,) from the time when Muscovy 
first became an European power — from the time of Peter Alexio- 
vitch, (or Alexiowitz, as I was taught in my youth to call him,) who 
was the slayer of his son, and who transmitted his power to Catha- 
rine, the Livonian peasant girl, first his strumpet, then his Cham- 
berlain's, then an Empress ; whom I have heard more than once 
confounded with her namesake, Catharine, Princess of Anhalt, the 
second of that name, who, by the murder of her husband, Peter III. 
usurped the throne. With some ' variation of the mode, not of the 
measure,' it is the case in this our day of Constantine Csesar-ovitch 
which means, I believe, Fitz-Ccesar — as it was with his father, Paul 
Petrovitch, and with his father, Peter, the son of somebody — nobody 
knows who — who went before Paul, not by the same instrument ; 
no, Sir. In the case of Peter, the red-hot poker — the actual caute- 
rie — supplied the place of the Pahlen-tie of the twisted cravat — a 
la Pichegru — and it was only the day after the news arrived of the 
deliverance of the world from the Autocracy of Alexander the 
Deliverer — as well as I remember the date — I know that it was on 
the 9th of February — three days before the unavoidable departure 
of my colleague, that I endeavored, and, as I then thought, not 
without some show of success, to impress the senate with the impor- 
tant bearing of the recent event at Taganrock, (recent as to us,) 
upon the new, wild, dangerous, and, as I fear, fatal policy, now, for 
the first time, if not announced, attempted to be practiced upon by 
this rash and feeble administration. Elizabeth and Burleigh were 
cautious and powerful. The Stuarts and the Buckinghams, profli- 
gate, feeble, and rash. It was then that I forewarned the Senate 
that the red-hot poker of some OrlofF the Balofre, or OrlofF, the 
other Favorite — (it was a regular household appointment of 
Catharine la Grande somewhat irregularly filled occasion- 
ally — a la Cossaque.) It was on that day that I suggested to the 
Senate that the poker or the bow-string of a Zuboff, or the some- 
thing else of somebody else — some other Russian or Russian in 
off — the instrument and the mute nearest at hand in the Capra?an 



304 SPEECHES OF 

styes of tyrrany and lust — was ready to despatcli this new succes- 
sor of the Tzars — of the Constancies — of the Byzantine Caesars. 

"But, Sir, I, the common libeller of great and good men, did 
injustice to both these legitimates ; to St. Nicholas and to Csesaro- 
vitch. I thought too ill of one of them, and too well of the other. 
I thought that Commodus would " show fight." But, Sir, let us 
not despair of the Russian. In spite of Montesquieu's sneer, he 
" can feel" for a brother, at least, even although he be not flayed 
alive ; except now and then, under the autocracy of the knout. He 
has not, indeed, yet learned " to make Revolutions with rose-water" 
— that is the political philosopher's stone, which is yet in the womb 
of time, to be brought forth by some modern ^4ccowc/ier-reformer. 
But he shows signs of capability that are quite encouraging. He 
cannot, indeed, redeem his paper ; neither can the Bank of Ken- 
tucky redeem its paper ; but the red-hot poker is replaced by a 
box of sweet-meats — the bow-string by a medal hung around the 
nec k — the badge, not of death, but of idiocy and cowardice. Corn- 
modus is brave no where but in the arena, with kittens, and puppy 
dogs, and women, for his antagonists ; a veritable master Thomas 
N er o — see Hogarth's progress of cruelty. An Ukase, backed by 
a hobby-horse, or a medal, and a box of sweet-meats ; goody goodies, 
as the overgrown children say, is the full compensation paid, had, 
and received, for the surrender of the autocratical crown of the 
largest Empire in the world, and some say the most powerful — of 
the proud eminence of the Umpire of Europe. How vastly amiable 
and sentimental! A Ukase now does what was formerly done 
with a red-hot poker, or a bow-string ; a Ukase, with a most affec- 
tionate fraternal letter, a box of sweet-meats, a hobby-horse, or a 
medal — as we, in our barbarous, slave-holding country, do some- 
times, hang a quarter of a dollar round a child's neck to keep it in 
good humor — all cooled, however, with the blood of a few real 
adherents to legitimacy — in the persons of the guards of the Empire, 
faithful among the faithless — to make the charm firm and good. 
Would the gentleman from North Carolina reduce us to worse than 
this Russian barbarism ?" 

This vulgar ribaldry was spoken by this man in open Senate ; 
the European Ministers, the Russian Minister, were, or might have 
been present. The speech, such as I have read it, was published 
in the newspapers, and was, doubtless, as a part of the political 






TRISTAM BURGES. 305 



transactions of the United States, transmitted to the Emperor of 
Russia, by his Minister then in this country. After this, who could 
have selected this man as an accomplished statesman, to represent 
this American Government at the Russian Court, with any hope or 
intention that he should, by his diplomatic services, sustain the 
dignity, advance the character, or subserve the interests of this 
Nation. 

Permit me to offer one other reason why this man could not have 
been appointed for any national purpose. The peculiarities of his 
mind render him incapable of any public diplomatic service. The 
mind, like the fountain, is known by its effusions. Let me read 
from one of his speeches on Executive Powers, as published by him. 
(Gales & Seaton's Register, vol. 2. p. 390.) 

"Having thus, Sir, disburdened myself of some of the feelings 
that have been excited by the gallant and fearless bearing of the 
gentleman from North Carolina, allow me to go on and question 
some of his positions. 

" One of them is the durability of the Constitution. With him, 
and with father Paul, (of the Constitution of Venice,) I say esto 
I perpetua : but I do not believe it will be perpetual. I am speaking 
I now of what Burke would call high matter. I am not speaking to 
I the groundlings, to the tyros and junior apprentices ; but to the 
I grey-headed men of this nation, one of whom, I bless God for it, I 
i see is now stepping forward, as he stepped forward in 1799, to save 
' the Republic. I speak of William B. Giles. I speak to grey 
| heads ; heads grown grey, not in the ' recept of custom' at the 
t Treasury of the people's money ; not to heads grown grey in 
iniquity and intrigue ; not to heads grown grey in pacing Pennsylva- 
I nia Avenue ; not to heads grown grey in wearing out their shoes at 
levees ; not to heads grown grey (to use the words of the immortal 
Miss Edgeworth, the glory and the champion of her lovely sex and 
wretched country) in ploughing the Four Acres. Am I under- 
stood? There is a little court, Sir, of the 'Castle' of Dublin, called 
the Four Acres ; and there, backwards and forwards, do the miser- 
able attendants and satellites of power walk, each waiting his turn 
to receive the light of the great man's countenance ; hoping the 
sunshine : dreading the cloudy brow. Spenser has well described 
the sweets of this life, and technically it is called Ploughing the 
Four Acres. Now, when a certain character in one of her incom- 



306 SPEECHES OF 

parable novels, Sir Ulic — I have forgot his name, but he was a 
McSycophant courtier, placeman, pensioner, and parasite — upbraid- 
ed that kind, good-hearted, wrong-headed old man, King Corney, 
with his wretched system of ploughing, the King of the Black 
Islands (" every inch a King") replied that there was one system of 
ploughing worse even than his ; and that was ploughing the Four 
Acres. This was a settler to the McSycophant." 

Was a mind like this, fitted, and provided, and regulated for the 
labors of the statesman and great diplomatic Minister 1 For, when 
this gentleman was at the zenith of his intellect, Mr. Jefferson had 
adjudged him unqualified for such services as this appointment, had 
it been made for public purposes, called on him to perform. 

Sir, if not for the public service, then he must have been appoint- 
ed to preserve the machinations of the Secretary of State, and the 
administration carried on by him under the Presidential name, from 
the hostility of this ancient adversary of all former administrations. 
To illustrate and confirm this important and deeply interesting fact, 
permit me to give a very brief sketch of the political life of this 
singular man. 

At the commencement of Washington's administration, he was a 
school-boy. To prove this fact, and also to lay open the very 
source and fountain of his bitter hostility to the next President, 
I will read a part of one of his speeches from Gales & Seaton's 
Reg. vol. v. p. 399. 

" Now, Sir, John Quincy Adams coming into power under these 
inauspicious circumstances, and with these suspicious allies and 
connexions, has determined to become the apostle of liberty, of 
universal liberty, as his father was, about the time of the formation 
of the Constitution, known to be the apostle of monarchy. It is no 
secret — I was in New-York when he first took his seat as Vice 
President, I recollect — for I was a school-boy at the time, attend- 
ing the lobby of Congress, when I ought to have been at school — I 
remember the manner in which my brother was spurned by the 
coachman of the then Vice President, for coming too near the arms 
blazoned on the scutcheon of the Vice Regal carriage. Perhaps I 
may have some of this old animosity rankling in my heart, coming 
from a race who are known never to forsake a friend, or forgive 
a foe." 



TRISTAM BURGES. 307 

From this, the waters of bitterness have flown in a stream so 
abundantly on the second and fifth President of the United States. 
To overthrow the first of these, this man joined himself to his great 
political rival. 

He grew into hostility with Jefferson in a very few years. For 
he has been a star without beams, except of a malign and blighting 
influence. Suffer me to illustrate this truth by reading from his 
speeches : 

" February 28th, 1806.— Mr. Clarke, of Virginia, moved to 
postpone until the 3d of March, Mr. Randolph's resolution to amend 
the Constitution of the United States, so that all the United States' 
Judges should be removed by the President on the joint Resolution 
of both Houses of Congress. In reply to a remark made by Mr. 
Conrad, Mr. Randolph said, * He (Mr. Conrad) belonged to a class 
of men which I highly respect, for the plain reason that I belong to 
it myself. He says the time is approaching when every man 
engaged in agricultural pursuits must be anxious to go home ; and, 
therefore, he does not wish at present to act on the Resolution I 
have laid on your table. True ! but when men, be they agricul- 
tural, mechanical, or of any other profession, undertake any busi- 
ness, it is their duty to go through with it at every hazard. If the 
situation of affairs warranted it, I should be willing to adjourn for 
two or three months. But I never can agree to adjourn in the pre- 
sent state of affairs, and leave the country to a blind and fortuitous 
destiny. I must first see something like land, some foothold, some- 
thing like certainty, instead of political chaos, without form or 
body. Before I consent to go home, I must see something like a 
safe and honorable issue to our differences with foreign powers ; 
and I must see — I hope another thing — something like an attempt 
to bring the Constitution of this people back to the principles on 
which this administration came into power." 

" April 5th, 1806. — Mr. Randolph moved to amend the secret 
journal by inserting in it the message of the 6th of December. In 
the course of his speech he said, * I found from a conversation with 
what was considered the head of the first Executive Department 
under the Government, that France was the great obstacle to the 
compromise of Spanish differences ; that France would not permit 
Spain to come to any accommodation with us, because France 
wanted money, and we must give her money. From the moment 



308 SPEECHES OF 

I heard that declaration, all the objections I originally had to the 
procedure were aggravated to the highest possible degree. I con- 
sidered it as a base prostration of national character, to excite one 
nation by money, to bully another nation out of its property ; and 
from that moment, and to the last moment of my life, my confidence 
in the principles of the man entertaining those sentiments died, 
never to live again." 

Whence this hostility? Had he become a federalist, and set 
himself to rebuilding the fabric which, as we are told, he had 
overthrown ? Not so : for rebuilding he had no genius, no taste. 
The cause of his opposition was well known in those days ; nor can 
any doubt, that a knowledge of it has come down to the present 
Secretary of State. 

When Mr. Madison came into the Presidency, Mr. Randolph, if 
not with him, was not against him. His love of change, or of 
opposition, or some private political grief, did, in 1811-12, bring out 
this statesman of Roanoke in bitter hostility to this third President. 
The last war was the distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Madison's 
administration. On the 20th of November, 1811, the Committee of 
Foreign Relations reported on that subject, and recommended to the 
consideration of Congress six Resolutions. The first was to fill up 
the ranks of the then existing army. The second recommended the 
raising of ten thousand additional troops. By the third, the Presi- 
dent might receive fifty thousand volunteers. The fourth gave 
power to the President to call out the militia. Ships of war were 
to be put in service by the fifth ; and the sixth authorized private 
vessels to arm in their own defence. When I say Mr. Randolph 
opposed these resolutions, I do it merely to show his hostility to the 
administration of Mr. Madison. I will read from Nile's Register, 
vol. 1, page 318, a small part of one of his speeches on this occa- 
sion, to show not only this hostility, but also to illustrate the con- 
tempt which he has ever felt for military men and measures : 

" No sooner was the report laid on the table, than the vultures 
were flocking round their prey, the carcass of a great military 
establishment — men of tainted reputation, of broken fortune, (if ever 
they had any,) and of battered constitution, ' choice spirits, tired 
of the dull pursuits of civil life,' were seeking after agencies and 
commissions ; willing to doze in gross stupidity over the public fire ; 
to light the public candle at both ends. Honorable men undoubtedly 



TR1STAM BURGES. 309 

there were, ready to serve their country ; but what man of spirit or 
self-respect, would accept a commission in the present army?" 

Sir, let me not be misunderstood. I am stating historic facts ; 
Mr. Randolph's hostility to the then administration ; not my own 
opinion of that war, or of his opposition to it. Had I been here at 
the time, I might have joined in that opposition ; for the Represen- 
tatives from Rhode-Island both opposed these Resolutions ; nor do I 
recollect that the people of that State ever censured them for that 
opposition. We might go through the whole Congressional record, 
and we should find Mr. Randolph, at all subsequent times, equally 
hostile to the administration of Mr. Madison. 

When Mr. Monroe came into the Presidency, Mr. Randolph was 
his advocate and supporter. In the last year (1824-5) of his 
administration, he had changed fronts. For at that time it was one 
of his common sayings, " Mr. Monroe came into power by universal 
consent ; and he would go out with equal unanimity." I will read 
from Gales and Seaton's Register, vol. 2, page 405, what he said in 
the Senate, (1826,) concerning this venerated patriot statesman. 
" We," said he, " altered the Constitution to guard against that 
scoundrel — I will not read the name of the man ; though he may 
have sinned, yet has he also immeasurably suffered — though not 
greater than him who, after the event, formed the union of honest 
men of all parties." Who, Sir, was the man said to have united 
the honest men of all parties ? James Monroe. Such a coalition 
might be sure of John Randolph for an adversary. 

Was Mr. Van Buren ignorant of all these traits in the character 
of this man ? He knew them well. He knew more ; he was 
fully aware that no person on earth could be more hostile to military 
men, than this same Mr. John Randolph. In confirmation of this, I 
will read an extract from one of his speeches. 

" I own a natural jealousy to military men — it grows out of love 
of country — it is strengthened and kept alive by the multitude of 
examples in history, ancient and modern, of the fall of Empires and 
the revolutions of States ; the misery and the wretchedness brought 
upon the human race by the ambition and pride of military men." 
Vide Speech against Gen. Wilkinson. 

" I am willing to give to every man a just and reasonable reward 
for his public services, both in pay and .gratitude ; but the military 
character is so rarely satisfied with any thing less than direct wor- 
ship, that I am of opinion— I always was of the opinion, we could 



310 



SPEECHES OF 



not be too watchfnl of the aspiring ambition of a military com- 
mandcr." — Same -speech. 

No man in the nation was more adverse to Gen. Jackson's 
election to the Presidency than Mr. Randolph was in 1822. In 
that year, he said in his letter to the people of Charlotte — " The 
election of Gen. Jackson to the Presidency is not to be dreaded, as 
it can in no event possibly occur ; the people of the United States 
have not yet become so corrupted as to choose a man of military 
talents to govern the national councils, in opposition to the splendid 
talents of Mr. Crawford, or indeed of any other good man in the 
country." 

The advancement of Mr. Adams to the last Presidency, awakened 
all his animosity against that gentleman and his venerated father. 
He, therefore, attached himself to the party of General Jackson, and 
especially to that gentleman ; not from esteem, respect, or friendship 
— not from his qualities as a man, a hero, or a statesman ; but as 
the only instrument by which he could exclude Mr. Adams from a 
second Presidential term. 

" Party, like calamity, brings men into company with strange 
bed-fellows." Mr. Randolph soon found himself unpleasantly 
lodged ; and before the middle of February, 1829, he said emphat- 
ically, " I do not attend the Inauguration ; mark that, Sir !" He 
left the city before that event ; but not until, as rumor, the untiring 
herald of distinguished personages announced, that he had delivered 
the ominous prediction. What was it 1 " Never, Sir, never will 
the American purple again fall on the shoulders of a gentleman." 

I do not pretend to say, that the Secretary regarded this predic- 
tion as literally excluding him from the succession ; but could he 
quietly manage his " state affairs" while such a man was at Roa- 
noke, or in Virginia, or even in the United States ? Sooner, Sir, 
would the fox creep into the farm yard in the day time, or curl 
himself down to sleep in his lair, while he snuffed the huntsman or 
heard the hounds in the South- West breezes of the morning. Did 
he not quiver at the mere name of this Warwick, this King-killer 
and King-maker ; this John Randolph, who had set up Presidents, 
as boys set up nine-pins, to knock them down again ? Such a man, 
the Secretary knew, could not be, for he never had been, quiet 
under any administration. He had not been satisfied with the 
administration of Jefferson, of Madison, of Monroe ; could he be 
satisfied with this God onlv knows whose administration it is. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 311 

Sir, the Secretary has waylaid, entrapt, exiled, and sent this man 
to plough the four acres, at a distance of four thousand miles from 
his own patrimonial fields and trees. The great object of Mr. Van 
Buren has been to get him out of his way — to send him abroad. 
As a Minister, he knew he could do nothing — he expected — he 
intended he should do nothing — deserve nothing — receive nothing : 
but the ridicule of all other nations, the pity of his own, and the 
contempt of the Secretary himself and his partisans. 

This heartless politician has, to render this tremendous adversary 
powerless at home, lured him from his independence, the boast and 
glory of his manhood, to an old age of foreign surveillance : to 
come home soiled and spattered to the very eyes in treasury dirt ; 
to shrink into retirement and insignificance ; and be like Piso, 
returned from the inglorious administration of his Macedonian prov- 
ince. Shall we, Sir, in aid of these schemes of the Secretary, and 
to put him in a condition of quiet machination against the laws, the 
Constitution, and the great interests of this nation, appropriate this 
money, and thereby legalize and sustain this measure ? I trust in 
God, we shall not. Pay the man, if you please — for going out, for 
coming home — send out a ship of war for him ; it will add, perhaps, 
less than thirty thousand dollars to the expenditure. Let him have 
this nine thousand dollars outfit — the President, it has been said, 
advanced it to him from his private purse — restore it to him ; do 
not suffer ourselves to be in debt to the Chief Magistrate of the 
nation. It is all a bubble, a mere child's whistle, and people will 
and must pay dearly for this toy of their Secretary — but let us be 
rid of it, and this " State Mission," of its memory ; if possible, of its 
deep and mortifying disgrace. 

If this course be taken, our relations with Russia will be re- 
deemed, restored, and placed upon a safe and honorable footing. If 
no one else do it, I will move that we go into Committee of the 
Whole on the State of the Union; for the sole purpose of moving 
this appropriation of nine thousand dollars for an outfit, and nine 
thousand dollars for the first year's salary, to enable the President 
to send out to Russia an efficient Mission, and one in all respects 
different from this of the Secretary. For never, Sir, since the 
revolution, has there been a time, when the interests of the United 
States more urgently required a fair, honorable, and dignified rep- 
resentation in the Courts of Europe. 



SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE 
REMAINS OF WASHINGTON. 



On the 13th of February, 1832, a Resolution was introduced 
into the House of Representatives, to remove the remains of Wash- 
ington from Virginia, and to place them in a vault under the centre 
of the Capitol. Mr. Burges addressed the House on the Resolution 
in the following 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Speaker : — Permit me to join my voice to that of the many, 
who have already mingled in this discussion. There is a kind of 
immortality associated with what may be deemed the perishable 
part of this mighty theme ; and he who speaks of the venerated 
remains of Washington, must catch something of inspiration ; and 
feel himself elevated to the loftiest purposes of our nature. Twice 
has this question come before this House, twice without a dissenting 
voice. Once, soon after the death of the illustrious Father of his 
Country covered the nation with mourning ; and once, when, a few 
years ago, enquiry was made here, concerning the most appropriate 
method of carrying into effect the arrangement originally made 
between the bereaved family and the national government. If that 
arrangement of piety and patriotism cannot now be consummated 
with equal unanimity ; nothing surely need fall in the way of 
performing it, under the exercise of our purest and best feelings. 
In this controversy of patriotism among great States, concerning 
their respective interests in this question, it may be thought of one, 
geographically so inconsiderable as Rhode-Island, that silence might 
more become her Representatives in this House, than any, the most 
perfect form of speech. Sir, in any arduous passage of arms, 
in any intricate question of council, Washington himself in his 
time did not so decide. Nor will one man in this Hall very severely 
censure my wish to be heard on this occasion ; if he call to mind, 
that he, who in the darkest hour of revolutionary conflict, stood, in 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 



313 



the estimation of the nation, and of that illustrious man, next to him- 
self, was a native of that State. There was, there was a time, Sir, 
when this man was the property of his whole country. If I look 
back towards the beginning of life, memory is in a moment filled 
with bright and joyous recollections of that time, when, even in the 
distant and humble neighborhood of my birth, the lessons of youth, 
and of childhood, when the very songs of the cradle, were the deeds, 
the glory, the praises of Washington. 

Think you, Sir, these teachings have ceased in the land ; that 
these feelings are dead in our country ? What then do we hear 
from the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie). Cannot 
we, who regard the buried remains of the great Father of our 
Country, as the earthly remains of no other mortal man are regard- 
ed ; cannot we, awed and subdued with gratitude, with more than 
filial piety ; cannot we approach the hallowed repository, and roll 
back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, without the guilt of 
sacrilege ? Cannot his country remove the remains of this, its 
great Founder ; and carry them in solemn procession, accompanied 
by all the rights of religion, and all the sanctity of its ministers ; 
and finally deposite them in the national cemetery provided for that 
purpose under the foundation of this building ; which thenceforth 
shall be, not only the temple of freedom, legislation, and justice, but 
also the august mausoleum of Washington ? Who, Sir, who, of all 
the civilized world, will, while these reverential movements are per- 
forming, who will .point his finger at these solemnities, and call them 
a mere pageant ? 

It is the feeling, Sir, the purpose of the persons, and not the 
place, or the subject which renders their deed pious or profane. 
Can we never again without sacrilege, look into the dark house of 
those so dear to us, until they, bursting the cerements of the tomb, 
are clothed with immortality ? How often does the piety of children, 
how often the anxious affection of parents, induce them to remove 
the remains of endeared relatives, to places of more appropriate 
sepulture ? How often do nations remove to their own countries, 
from distant foreign lands, the bones of their illustrious dead ? Was 
it sacrilege in the Hebrews, when migrating from Egypt, to take 
from the consecrated catacomb or pyramid, where for centuries they 
had been deposited, the bones of the illustrious founder of one of 
their families, and the preserver of them all ; and bearing them 

p* 



314 SPEECHES OF 

from the populous valley of the Nile, the learned and luxurious 
realm of the Pharaohs, the scene of all his glory, that they might 
carry them to a land of rocks and mountains ; and render his 
burial place one of the eternal monuments of their country ? So 
it has continued ; and at this day it is, by the dwellers on the hill or 
on the plain, pointed out to the traveller as the tomb of Joseph the 
Patriarch. 

Sir, what man is there, who does not shudder with horror, when 
he is told, that, not many years ago, a felonious gardner of the late 
proprietor of Mount Vernon, conceived the sacrilegious project of 
plundering the family cemetery of those sacred remains ; and of 
transporting to Europe the bones of Washington, and there offering 
them for sale as relics to the disciples or the fanatics of freedom in 
the old world. Procuring a false, or purloining the true key, he 
entered the tomb ; but, in the darkness of night, and under the 
excitement of horror natural to the deed, he bore away those of 
another, by mistake ; and left the hallowed bones of him, whose 
country would now with filial piety place those sacred remains per- 
fectly secured in a national mausoleum, under the eye, and in the 
safe-keeping of all future generations. We are told that the last 
will and testament of Washington, points out the place and directs 
the manner of his interment ; and if we remove his bones from their 
present repository, we shall violate that will, and set at defiance 
principles dear to all civilized nations. Did indeed, then, this great 
man by his will prohibit this people from doing honor to his remains, 
by placing them in a mausoleum more suitable to his illustrious life, 
and to the gratitude of Americans ? He, like all Christian mer, 
directed by his last will, that his body should have Christian burial ; 
and prescribed the manner, and selected the place for that purpose. 
How shall we expound that will ? It has been expounded for us ; 
and that too by one, who was the partner of his perils and triumphs, 
his labors and councils. One, who shared with him all life could 
give — and stood by him in the hour of dissolution. Think you, 
that she would have violated his will : and that too, in the begin- 
ning of her bereavement ; in the first dark hours of her earthly 
desolation ? " Taught by his great example," she gave up those 
remains at the call of her country. For to her, as in life to him, 
the nation was their family ; the whole people were their children. 
What man can believe, that this distinguished woman, alike beloved 






TRISTAM BURGES. 315 

and honored by a whole people, would have given her consent to 
the removal, requested by the whole Congress in 1799, if she had 
believed what the gentleman from South Carolina now tells us, that 
such removal would have violated his last will, and been a sacrilege 
committed against the sanctuary of the tomb ? 

Sir, how often has the attention of the nation been called to this 
great cousummation, so devoutly wished by all the people ? How 
often has the arrangement of 1799 come to the public ear, from that 
estimable man, the grandson of that illustrious matron ? How 
often have we heard from him not in the language of rebuke, which 
was merited; no, nor of complaint which he might justly utter; 
but in the language of deep and heartfelt regret, that the bones of 
Washington were mouldering into dust, at a distance from that mau- 
soleum, which the gratitude of his country had already prepared for 
them. It cannot then, Sir, it cannot be said, that the consent of the 
family will be wanted for us to do, what seems to have been so 
earnestly desired hy them. 

I cannot, Sir, join in the pious incantation of some gentlemen, who 
would, in imagination, call up the mighty dead, and put them to 
inquisition, concerning these obsequies. Who, if he might, would 
bring back from the blessedness of heaven, to the cares of earth, 
one purified spirit ; or for a moment interrupt the felicities of those 
realms of reality, by any thing which agitates human feelings, 
in this region of dust and shadows 1 Permit me to learn from his 
life, what his country may, with propriety, do with his remains, 
after his death. When that immortal soul, now as we trust in 
beatitude, inhabited and animated his mortal part, where was the 
place, what was the service to which the voice of his country called 
him, and he was not there ? . In the toils of war, in the councils of 
peace, he was, soul and body devoted to that people, whom he 
labored through life to build up into one great nation. Should that 
body think you, Sir, at this time be less at the service of his coun- 
try, than when alive with the imperishable soul it was Washington, 
and walked the world, for human welfare ? If his whole life doth 
tell us, that he placed himself at the call of his country, then truly 
where should all that remains of him, be finally found, but where 
the same voice would place them ? 

We would not, in the language of the gentleman from South 
Carolina, raise over him " a pyramid, a monument, like the eternal 



316 



SPEECHES OF 



mountains." No, Sir, the folly of ancient ambition, has perished 
from the earth, while these its monuments still stand unmoved upon 
its surface. This House, we trust, will endure as long as this 
nation endures. Let this be the Mausoleum of Washington. We 
would place his remains in the cemetery built for that purpose, 
under the centre of that dome which covers the Rotundo. Directly 
over this on that floor, in accordance with the Resolution two years 
ago submitted to this House, we would erect a pedestrian statue of 
that man, sufficiently colossal, and placed on a pedestal, so high 
and massy, as might be required to fill and satisfy the eye, in the 
centre of that broad and lofty room, which, probably, has no equal 
in the architecture of the world. 

The ever-during marble will give to coming generations the form 
and the features of Washington ; and the traveller of future ages 
shall learn where he may find his tomb. This House, this Mauso- 
leum of one, who, prospered by Divine assistance, performed more 
for his country and ibr the human race, than any other mortal, 
shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will come the 
brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our country ; not to 
worship, but to stand by the sepulchre and to relume the light of 
patriotism at the monument of Washington. 

We must with deep and anxious regret have perceived, that Vir- 
ginia prefers her separate and exclusive claim to these venerated 
remains. It will never be forgotten, that Washington was a son of 
that distinguished State. Is not this honor enough to gratify the 
ambition of any people of any region of our earth ? Why so 
avaricious of his glory, which like that of the sun falls with no 
diminished brightness on one region, because it shines on a thousand 
others ? She needs it not. She will still have sons enough, warmed 
with noble ambition, to perfect and preserve the fabric of her glory. 
Washington was born, and lived for his country. Let the mighty 
base of his fame extend to his country, his united country, and to 
every part of it. Then shall the young and the aspiring, in every 
region of our land, and through all coming generations, whether of 
humble or elevated origin, read the history of the great and the 
good ; here they shall see by what monumental honors his country 
has consecrated his name ; and thus, he who lived the most perfect 
man of one age, shall become the great and enduring model for all 
future time. 



TR1STAM BURGE S. 



317 



Let me, then, in behalf of our common country, implore Virginia, 
and the distinguished sons of Virginia now in this Hall, to look to a 
consummation of the arrangement of 1799. I do entreat them now 
to recollect and regard the unanimity of a no less distinguished 
delegation then, as worthy of all imitation. - Let Virginia, " the 
fruitful mother of heroes and statesmen," not disregard the memory 
of her most illustrious matron, who, at the call of her country, sur- 
rendered her own individual and peculiar affection, to the promptings 
of a glorious patriotism. 

At first, I confess it did appear to me that there might be some- 
thing, in the removal of these remains, inappropriate to a birth-day 
celebration. It is not so. These two days, that of his birth, and 
that of this celebration, are separated by the whole duration of an 
hundred years. Between these two points, what a tide of events 
has rolled over the world ? When the eye of recollection looks 
back towards that birth-day morning, what a succession of benefits, 
blessings, glories, seem to have been lighted up by that auspicious 
sun ! Our Independence, institutions, government, with all their 
concomitant excellencies, we behold ; and in all, the mighty agency 
of Washington ! He seems to stand on earth among us, in the midst 
of his achievements, to receive our gratitude, and to witness his own 
fame. If we carry in procession these mouldering remains, it will 
help to bring us back to a perception of our common allotment, and 
teach us to realize his and our own mortality. In the midst of our 
gratulations, that such a man was born, we shall have before our 
eyes the memorial, that such a man has died ; and the joys of the 
Centennial Birth-Day, shall be chastened by those teachings of wis- 
dom, which remind us, that no human life, no sublunary good can 
endure forever. 

Let us then be permitted to hope, that this nation may now, at 
last, discharge its high obligation to that venerated family, by doing 
appropriate honors to the remains of this most illustrious man ; so 
that, hereafter, the filial piety of no son or daughter of America, 
may be agitated with the anxious fear, that some felonious hand may 
violate the sanctuary of his tomb, and give to a foreign land the 
glory of being the Mausolem of Washington. 



SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE 
PUBLIC DEPOSITES. 



The following Resolution, offered by Mr. Mardis, being under 
consideration : 

Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means be instructed 
to inquire into the expediency of reporting a Bill requiring the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury to deposit the public monies of the United 
States in the State Banks ; and, also, as to the expediency of defining 
by law all contracts hereafter to be made with the Secretary for the 
safe-keeping, management, and disbursement of the same. Mr. 
Burges sent up to the Speaker an amendment, requiring all after the 
word " Resolved" to be stricken out, and that amendment to be 
inserted, by which the sufficiency of the Secretary's reasons, for his 
order and direction to remove the public money, would be brought 
before the House, and made the only question for discussion. The 
Speaker suggested that, by some alterations, this amendment might 
be made in order ; and 

Mr. Burges proceeded as follows ; 

Mr. Speaker : — The amendment just offered by me, I will put 
in the form suggested by the Chair, to bring it within the strictest 
requirements of order. In that form, it will present to the House 
what has, from the first opening of the debate, seemed to me the 
sole question for decision in both Houses of Congress : are the 
reasons, laid before us, by the Secretary of the Treasury, sufficient 
to justify the order and direction given by him to remove the money 
of the United States from the Bank and its branches ? If they are 
not, and the House of Representatives vote that they are not, then, 
because Congress do not sustain the Secretary of the Treasury, in 
his order and direction of removal, he must leave the money 
where the law has ordered it to be deposited. Unless both 
Houses decide that the reasons are sufficient, the Secretary has 
failed to lay before Congress such reasons as, in their opinion, justify 
him in making the order and direction of removal. Congress is the 
Court to which the Secretary appeals for a confirmation of his order 



TRISTAM BURGES. 319 

and direction of removal ; if this Court be equally divided, no judg- 
ment can be given, confirming the order and direction of the Secre- 
tary ; and, therefore, that order and direction are not confirmed, but 
of necessity, reversed ; and the Secretary is bound to reverse them, 
by giving orders and directions to the collectors of the revenue, and 
the Treasurer of the United States, to deposit the public money in 
the United States Bank and its branches. 

Before making any further allusion to the reasons of the Secre- 
tary, it may be proper to give some reply to the argument of the 
gentleman from Alabama, (Mr. Mardis,) on the Resolution present- 
ed by him. He has, indeed, done the best justice, which could 
have been done to the case. Not the chamois, in his own native 
Alps, could spring from rock to rock with more agility ; nor could 
the young panther leap from one tree to another, in our own deep 
forests, with more of muscular, than he has displayed of intellec- 
tual elasticity, in moving from point to point of this great argu- 
ment. 

Notwithstanding this, he does not seem to be aware of how much 
he admits, by the very words of his Resolution. He would induce 
Congress to enact laws by which the doings of the Secretary of the 
Treasury may be confirmed. Those doings are either legal or 
illegal. If legal, they require no law to confirm them ; for no law 
renders them more than legal, more than lawful. If they are illegal, 
the gentleman does not intend, I must believe, to require of Con- 
gress the enactment of such laws, as may shield public officers 
themselves, from punishment, when the whole country is suffering, 
from the effects of their own violations of the laws. 

This gentleman, in the course of his argument, urges the House 
to confer on the State banks the power of making a paper currency 
equal to that of the United States Bank. He tells us that he would 
do this, because the United States Bank is unconstitutional. The 
power to make paper currency, is one of the powers of the United 
States Bank, and is one without which it could not be a bank. If the 
Constitution forbid Congress to confer on a United States Bank the 
power to make bills of credit, or paper currency, by what leger- 
demain can Congress confer that power on State banks 1 

I do not remember any thing more, in the gentleman's argument, 
which may require my attention. His war with the United States 
Bank is, in my opinion, no part of the question ; and his determina- 



320 SPEECHES OF 

tion to die in the last ditch, is a death in metaphor, a ditch in song ; 
and I have no belief that the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Mar- 
dis) intends to support the Secretary's reasons, by any ditch or 
death less figurative. 

I shall, therefore, leave the Bank, its constitutionality, and the 
renewal of its charter, to the next Congress. Our inquiry is con- 
cerning the national money ; the causes, real or ostensible, for 
which it has been taken from the use of the people ; and the effects 
which have followed, and which will follow, this removal. It is 
my purpose lay before the House, some of the many reasons, 
which have convinced me, that the great object of this removal is 
the extension of Executive power, and the gratification of those 
men, in our country, who are devoted to the exercise of Executive 
power and patronage. Before this can be well done, it is needful 
to give some short history of the progress of Executive power, and 
of the devotion to it in our country ; and also of the progress of 
that moneyed interest and power, in our country, after which the 
Executive is now so greedily grasping. 

The condition of our country, with no hope for any change for 
the better, is, indeed, distressing. Sir, it is not the magnitude, but 
the duration of our calamities, which renders them intolerable. 
Almost any evil may be inconsiderable, if we have assurance that 
it cannot be lasting, or will be followed by enduring good. The 
present condition of our country is, indeed, grievous ; but what, 
what, Sir, is this condition, when compared with that weight of 
oppression, which public measures now seem preparing to lay on 
the American people ? If blight in the air, or the withering breath 
of disease on the earth, were consuming life in our land ; and we 
were prostrated under His hand* who in the midst of judgments 
always remembers mercy, we should, indeed, be suffering ; but not 
as we now are, from the bitter assurance that all our present calam- 
ities are but the beginning of sorrows. 

It has appeared, for some years past, that a settled purpose has 
been formed, by the Executive, to render useless, if not utterly to 
abolish, every other department of power in our Government. 
Each one of them has in turn been assailed, by either calumny or 
violence. Who has forgotten the time when a member of this 
House was waylaid and shot at, almost instantly after he stept out 
over the threshold of the Capitol ? What man in this Hall, can 



TRISTAM BURGES. 325 

now question the reasons of the Secretary, and not, by the Execu- 
tive press here, and by all affiliated papers elsewhere, be denounced 
as the bribed advocate of the Bank ? When has the Senate disa- 
greed with the President, and not felt the same polluted breath ? 
Nay, Sir, in what case, has the Supreme Court given a decision, in 
any important question, where the Chief Magistrate held a different 
opinion, when that Court has escaped from that rebuke, which has 
so frequently fallen upon this House, and upon the Senate ? 

This disposition of the Executive, to draw around, and arrogate 
to himself, all the powers of the Government, is, at this time, favored 
by opinions less doubtful, and feelings more devoted, than could 
ever, until now, have been found, in our country, to favor a like 
disposition ; if a like disposition ever existed in any other President 
of the United States. 

It is well known, that a love of liberty in some men, and a devot- 
edness to power in others, have marked almost every era, in the 
history of our English race, both in Europe and in America. That 
history has given to each of those great classes of men a distin- 
guishing political name ; and we may find, on the record of past 
centuries, that the men devoted to liberty, are denominated Whigs — 
the men devoted to power, are denominated Tories. 

The Tories of our revolution, were devoted to the power of the 
British Crown ; believed in the right divine of Kings ; and con- 
tended, not only that the English Monarch could do no wrong, but 
that whatever he might do, we, his colonial subjects, had no right to 
complain. 

The Whigs held to a different political creed, and believed that 
the power of the Crown, depended on the laws of the realm ; that 
its origin was the will of the. nation ; and that the great object of 
all its exercise, was the public benefit, both in the mother country 
and the colonies. The Tories held to the opinion, that no man ought 
to be admitted to any office of honor or emolument, unless he were 
himself a Tory, a believer in the divine origin, and the unlimited na- 
ture of kingly power. It was otherwise holden by the Whigs ; merit 
was their passport to appointment ; and even until the commencement 
of the revolutionary war, they held in high respect all Crown offi- 
cers, who did not abuse their trust. 

After this Government was organized in the United States, 
although all devotion to the British Crown had been utterly destroyed 



326 SPEECHES Of 

and swallowed up in the revolution ; yet, when it appeared that 
power and patronage belonged to the President of the United States, 
some men were found disposed to devote themselves to that power. 
It was not because that power was constitutional, and bestowed for 
benignant purposes ; nor because the great patriot and father of 
his country had been elected to the exercise of it ; but purely 
because it was power, and they loved to admire and praise its glo- 
rious and overwhelming attributes. 

These men were the ultras of those times, not purely federal, for 
that was, as Washington was, purely republican ; but more than 
federal, and in their own estimation, transcendently federal. In 
England, such men would have been the devotees of power, even 
"in the Stuarts' reign." These ultras, a deluded few then, in 
Washington's time, held to the doctrine, that none but partisans of 
their own political creed, were entitled to hold any office under the 
Government ; although neither he nor his immediate successor held 
to any such doctrine ; and that principle remained in their times, a 
metaphysico-political theory. The great body of the people were 
then Whigs of the purest principles ; men warmed witR that love of 
liberty by which they had achieved the revolution ; and they had 
established the United States Government to preserve that liberty, 
and secure the benefits of that revolution. The ultras of those 
times found no sympathy with such a people ; and their Govern- 
ment, devoted to the same elevated principles, gave no encourage- 
ment to the feelings and sentiments of these men ; nor were ever 
influenced, in any public measure, by their devotedness and sub- 
mission to political power. 

When the federal administration was succeeded, by what was 
called the democratic, that administration soon had its ultras, and 
those ultras became the Tories of democracy. For many of those 
men, who had contended for the overthrow of power, because it 
was federal, were then ready to devote themselves to the same 
power, if it were but surrounded and consecrated by the names and 
forms, the mere ritual of democracy. Democratic ultras carried 
into practice what had been a theory only among their federal pre- 
decessors. They were alike the devotees of power, because it was 
power ; but while the one believed in the right to exclude from 
appointment, the other exercised the right, and did exclude from 
appointment to office, all those who were not of their own political 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 327 

creed. Although the principles of the revolution were still active 
in the great mass of the people ; yet the devotees of power, and 
the aspirants of office, had mingled with that mass very much of 
their own leaven of political subserviency. 

The ultras of those two great parties, the federal and democratic 
ultras, united, coalesced, amalgamated, and became, and now are, 
the controlling elements of that portion of our fellow-citizens who, 
at this time, hold the power of the National Government, and direct 
all the movements of administration. 

Where, Sir, and in what country, can we find any collection of 
men so entirely devoted, both in feelings and sentiments, to the two 
great English tory principles — submission to power, because it is 
power ; and exclusion from office of all those who dare to question 
the political creed, or the political administration of that power ? 

I repeat the assertion, that arrogance of power was never, in this 
country, until now, so recklessly sustained by political submission 
and subserviency. Alas, for our country ! Had the prophetic ken 
of the patriarch reached to our times, he might have seen in us a 
yoke-fellow, a follower under the carrier's saddle, for his own 
degenerate Issachar. Are we not veritably the patient animal, 
couching down between two burdens, the power that now is and 
the power that is to be, and both laid in the panniers, and placed 
upon us at once ? 

Men, in any country, may distinguish themselves by whatever 
political names they may choose ; and those names may cover, but 
can never change or conceal, their principles or their feelings. 
Let them be written on the catalogue of men, and called over, in 
the ear of the people, as federalists, or republicans, or democrats ; 
they will, when history shall record the national transactions of 
those times, be set down on that record, in one or the other of those 
two columns, where every human eye can see, written over them, 
on the one side, Whigs, on the other side, Tories. We, we, Sir, and 
all our countrymen, if our names ever find a place in those annals, 
shall be so recorded. If we are the devotees of power, because it 
is power, and look to the public plunder, distributed by that power, 
to none but its own servile followers, as the reward of our political 
devotion, our names will be placed there, under the names of those 
men, who were devoted to the power of the second James, in the 
great struggle for liberty, at the Revolution of England, in 1688 ; 



328 



SPEECHES -O F 



and under the names of those men, who were, in our country, devo- 
ted to the power of the third George, in the equally glorious strug- 
gle of these then United Colonies, in their Revolution of 1775 ; and 
all mankind will read, over their heads and our heads, at the top of 
the column, our political character, in one word ; and that will be a 
word, which no frequency of use, no connexion with distinguished 
names, can now, or hereafter, ever make less odious to the eye or 
the ear of the free and patriotic of our land, than it ever has been 
to all men who love liberty and abhor despotism. 

Sir, do we not seem to belie our illustrious Saxon origin ? Has 
not every drop of that glorious blood exuded from our veins, and 
the blood of slaves become our vital current? We are conquered 
as our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were conquered by the crafty and 
heartless Norman ; and blessed are the men, if there be any such 
men, who have not the chain already fixed to the leg, or the collar 
buckled and locked around the neck. 

Tories, by their abject submission to power, tempt and encourage 
rash, reckless, and arrogant men to become tyrants ; and they again 
plunder the people, and thereby raise up, feed, and sustain other 
generations of Tories. This progress of submission and plunder 
proceeds, until, in countries where it cannot otherwise be done, 
revolution arises ; and, like a storm, sweeps away together the 
tyrant and his minions. 

In elective Governments, revolution is not needful ; for the 
people, although they may be deceived for one or two, or perhaps 
three terms of Executive power ; yet will they at last learn the 
truth ; arouse to their great interests, at the cry of their great 
injuries, and consign those who have been violating their liberties, 
and plundering their substance, to long-merited and perpetual 
infamy. 

Sir, the people of this country know, quite as well as this Govern- 
ment ought to know, that men associated in communites, as we are, 
grant to their public officers a part only of their own inherent power. 
In this country, Constitutions, whether State or national, are not 
charters of popular liberty. That high attribute comes not from 
man ; it is the gift of the Creator himself. Constitutions mark out 
the amount of power bestowed by the people; and all not bestowed 
is reserved ; and all thus granted, is granted, not for the benefit of 
the grantees, but that, thereby, all reserved powers may the more 



TRISTAM BURGES. 329 

securely be exercised and enjoyed by the grantors, the people 
themselves. Among other powers reserved by them, and all of a 
value above all price, are two ; and both of these are intimately 
connected with the great question now under debate, now agitating 
this Congress and this whole country. One of these is, the power 
reserved by the people to choose for themselves, either mediately or 
immediately, all their own public officers ; and freely, and publicly, 
and fearlessly, to examine, both by the press and by the living 
voice, all their merits before, and all their conduct after election. 
The other of these powers, connected with this question, is that 
power born with every living man, and always reserved to him 
under all constitutional forms of Government — the inherent power 
to use his own labor, and his own means of acquisition, independent 
of all political influence, and solely for his own individual emolu- 
ment. This power of every man to work for himself, is the great 
foundation of all property ; and every invasion of it, by any political 
influence, is, so far, a war made on individual freedom. 

The free exercise of this power, has secured and preserved, in 
every part of our whole country, the surplus of what is annually 
produced by the labor, over and above what is annually consumed 
by the wants, of the people. This surplus, originally small, was, 
at first, by its several owners, laid up separately, in little hordes of 
the precious metals. Afterwards, at the call of enterprise, these, 
quite inconsiderable treasures, were loaned out, at interest, to indus- 
trious individuals. Finally becoming sufficient for that purpose, 
they were, many of them, united, and formed into banks of discount ; 
and thereby more conveniently accommodated that labor, which had 
abundance of strength and skill, but was in want of more capital. 

In this progress of acquisition, the people have exercised their 
great inherent and reserved power to work for themselves ; under 
this exercise they have preserved, collected, and laid up, and secured 
the capital of their now great monied interest ; and have vested not 
less than one hundred and fifty millions of that capital in their vari- 
ous monied institutions, established by laws for that purpose enacted, 
in all parts of the United States. 

Although the exercise of these reserved powers of the people, in 
the free election and free censure of all their public officers, and in 
the free use of their own labor and their own skill, in the accumu- 
lation and in the management of their own stocks, and banks, and 



330 



SPEECHES OF 



moneys, may have become offensive to those very officers ; yet 
nothing short of the perfect preservation of these great inherent 
and reserved powers, untouched by any political influence, can 
preserve inviolate the freedom of the people. How odious that 
sturdy disposition of self-management, claimed by the people, may 
at this time be to that subserviency of our days, which prostrates 
so many of those public officers at the foot of Executive power, can 
be ascertained, by the complaints of a certain Mr. Gilpin and his 
associates, laid some weeks ago on your table, in the Secretary's 
reasons, and in their own memorial. They were Bank Directors, 
appointed by the President and Senate ; and, as they seem to have 
thought, for some purpose more lofty and statesman-like than merely 
to manage the money of the United States, vested in the stocks of 
the National Bank ; and because the Directors chosen by the 
people, received them merely as Bank Directors, and not as great 
statesmen, and could not become subservient to the political pur- 
poses of their appointment, they have laid their wailings before this 
House and before the nation. In these their wailings, put in the 
form of a memorial, and placed on your table, they denounce the 
people's Directors of the Bank, as men made proud by that control 
of the purse, which has been committed to them by their appoint- 
ment ; they denounce the Bank itself as a money monopoly ; the 
whole stockholders, national and individual, as an aristocracy of 
wealth 5 and the whole institution, capital, direction, and ownership 
together, is set out by these good men as a great establishment, 
dangerous to the liberties of the people. Concerning themselves, 
these Executive Directors speak in very respectful terms. They 
assure us that veritably they are true patriots ; and they prove 
this, in a very lawyer-like manner, by the best evidence which the 
nature of the case would admit — their own testimony. They more- 
over assure us, that they are truly, and in good faith, the Represen- 
tatives of the people in the National Bank. Representatives of the 
people indeed ! and appointed by the President ! How long is it 
since the Representatives of the people were appointed for them by 
the Executive ? Has it already come to this, that such men, blown 
into existence by Presidential breath, dare to call themselves the 
Representatives of the people ? It is fortunate for the people that 
these very individuals should have been the first of such a com- 
modity manufactured for their use ; for the slightest examination oi 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



331 



the sample will satisfy the nation that the American people will 
consume no more of the article. 

Sir, if there be any aristocracy of wealth in our country, it is a 
genuine, a native growth. It has been produced by the labor, en- 
terprise, and persevering economy of the people themselves. Who, 
that has lived so long as I have lived, has not seen the progress of 
wealth in almost every department of acquisition 1 I can recollect 
a ship-boy, whose whole patrimonial wealth was a warm, an anxious 
parental blessing. What vocation can be more toilsome, what more 
perilous ? Sleep, which in other callings seals the weary eye 
of labor on something like a bed of repose, weighs his eyelids down, 
and steeps his senses in forgetfulness, with no better pillow, it may 
be, than the head of the " high and giddy mast, when the wind 
takes the ruffian billows by the tops, curling their heads, and hang- 
ing them with deafening clamor in the slippery shrouds." Yet he, 
by perpetual toil, continued enterprise, and untiring economy, comes 
at last to be a wealthy and extensive ship-owner. 

The vocation of the schoolmaster is a life of toil, humble acquisi- 
tion, and honest obscurity. His capital is altogether of the mind. 
There he is rich, in science, integrity, and habits of persevering 
labor and economy. How many of these men in our country, after 
toiling years in this employment, gather up the earnings and savings 
of those years, and turning their attention to commerce, become, by 
the practice of the same process of integrity, labor, and economy, 
rich and eminent merchants ? 

Sir, I have seen the young mechanic, at the age of twenty-one, 
standing on the threshold of his father's humble dwelling. He was 
just about to step out into the world, and begin life for himself; with 
no other earthly wealth than his own summer frock, trousers, and 
straw hat. His whole capital was his hands, and his skill in the use 
of them. Notwithstanding all these discouragements, this same 
man, by perpetual toil and perpetual economy, became a wealthy 
and extensive manufacturer. 

The plough-boy belongs to another class of humble and toilsome 
employment ; and who, that has ever shared in the toils or the 
sports of that vocation, can look back upon it, from any point in 
after life, without feelings of complacency and regret ? The plough- 
boy drives his team a-field, when the first sunbeams of morning are 
spreading over the earth ; when the world is bursting into life, and 



332 



SPEECHES O 1 



song, and action ; and, buoyant with youth, and health, and hope, 
he, " as lie turns over the furrowed land," joins the rude notes of 
his own voice to the jocund sounds of the merry morning. This 
laborious lad, by years of continual toil and continual economy, 
does at last become the owner of fields, and is himself rich in farms 
and plantations. 

All the acqusitions of these laborious and successful individuals 
are denounced, by the agrarian veto-makers of our times, as aris- 
tocracies of wealth, dangerous to liberty, and not to be protected by 
the laws. 

Sir, let me tell you, this has been, and this will be, the career of 
acquisition in our country ; and, although the idle and evil-minded 
politicians of our times, may hope to enrich themselves by exciting 
a war of plunder between those, who are just starting in the race, 
and those who have already arrived at the goal ; yet will they, 
these political miscreants, I trust, fail in their vile and abominable 
purpose, and finally reap, for their harvest, the abundant execra- 
tions of the people. 

Sir, by the exercise of this, their reserved power to work, each 
individual for his own emolument, the people have made acquisi- 
tions of wealth in every part of our country. Aided by these, 
they have established their banks ; banks in cities and towns ; 
banks in villages and rural neighborhoods ; State banks and banks 
of the United States ; and, finally, to gather up the fragments, that 
nothing may be lost, they have established Savings banks. 

Of all these, the stockholders are, some of them, rich men ; 
some middling interest men ; and some just beginning the race of 
acquisition, are quite poor men. Nay, Sir, the widow has placed 
here her mite, her whole living ; and it was safe. It was safe. 
Will it, can it or any of all these moneyed institutions of the 
people long be safe, in this Executive war waged in the land, 
against all which the people hold dear, and precious in our country ? 

Has not power itself, from its highest places, denounced, and have 
not the tens of thousands of its hireling minions joined in the denun- 
ciation against all these institutions of the people ? Are not the 
people excited to outrage against them, as establishments " to make 
the rich richer, and the poor poorer ?" Has not the Executive 
message been calculated, and why not intended, to urge labor to a 
war against capital ; toil against employment ; hunger against bread? 



T RISTAM BURGE8. 



333 



How far this Catiiinean conspiracy has been carried, who but the 
miscreants concerned in the plot, can now disclose to the nation 1 
Have they already parcelled out our cities and villages, and ap- 
pointed some Lentulus to superintend their conflagration ; some 
Cethegus and Gabinius to take care of the massacre of Senators, 
citizens, husbands, brothers ; and put in requisition their own trusty 
Catalines, to plunder their wealth, and dishonor their wives and 
daughters ? 

Sir, let the miscreants of our times and of our country remember 
the Marats, the Dantons, the Robespierres of other times and other 
countries. These demagogues have already scattered the embers 
of civil war in the land ; but let them beware how they blow the 
coals into a blaze ; for the abused and outraged American people 
will — unless these incendiaries make their escape by the light of 
their own torches — the outraged people w r ill extinguish the flaming 
ruins of their country, as the people of Franco did, by the immola- 
tion of those traitors who had lighted up the conflagration. 

Sir, among the great monied institutions of our country, the peo- 
ple have established the United States Bank, not more for individual 
than national purposes. In the first place, Congress, endowed with 
power by the Constitution to levy money from the people, to pay 
their public debt, provide for their common defence, and promote 
their general welfare, had need of a fiscal agent to collect, keep, 
and disburse such money. This Bank has so perfectly performed 
all these offices of such an agent, that Congress has levied and dis- 
bursed, by its agency, nearly five hundred millions of dollars, in the 
public service, without the cost or the loss of a single dollar to the 
nation. 

In the next place, it was known, when this Bank was established, 
that this money must, in the common course of the public service, 
lie some time in the public coffers, after it was paid in, and before it 
was paid out. This money, while thus lying idle, might be, if it 
were loaned out to the people, of great utility to them in their vari- 
ous labors and employments. For the privilege of loaning this 
money for the accommodation of the people, the Bank advanced to 
the United States, in the form of a bonus, what will be found to 
amount to nearly four per cent, on so much of this money as 
otherwise would have been lying idle, in the coffers of the Treasury. 
Under this contract between the Bank and the nation, this money 



334 SPEECHES O 1 

was loaned to the people, until the President ordered the whole oi 
it removed from the Treasury ; and thereby deprived the Bank oi 
the power to reimburse itself for the interest advanced on this 
money to the United States, or to accommodate the people by the 
loan of it. 

[Mr. Burges here goes into a history of the currency of our 
country, and the laws regulating the same ; and thus proceeds :] 

The fourth and last purpose in the establishment of this Bank of 
the United States was, to give it such powers, as a private institu- 
tion, as might, in their faithful and diligent exercise, render the 
capital, to the owners of it, profitable in a degree equal, and no 
more than equal, to that of other institutions of the same kind. 
Although excluded from dealing in stocks, when all other banks 
might deal in them, and engaged, by contract, to collect, keep, and 
disburse the public revenue, without pecuniary compensation ; yet, 
was it believed, that the use of the public money, after deducting 
the amount of bonus, paid in the beginning to the United States, 
might reimburse that expense, and remunerate the institution for 
the labor and expenditure, necessarily done and incurred, in the 
discharge of its fiscal and financial duties to the nation. It must 
have been the great purpose of Congress, in this institution, to unite 
the sharp-sighted, and untiring diligence and skill of private interest, 
with the laborious, patient, and enlightened fidelity, required in such 
an extensive and important national agency ; so that the people 
could, in nowise, suffer from the want of industry, talent, or faith- 
fulness, in the management of this institution, without bringing a 
much greater, and more ruinous accumulation of injuries, upon the 
interests of those who have vested their property in its funds. With 
what success this great purpose has been achieved, in the direction 
of those individual and national concerns, committed to this institu- 
tion, has, in the very face of Presidential power and influence, been 
decided ; not only by the representatives of this nation, but by many 
people of this nation, and many people of other nations, who had 
embarked their property in this great enterprise. No bank on 
earth was ever conducted with more skill and fidelity, or more to 
the satisfaction of all persons, interested in its funds ; none ever, 
more successfully, managed the exchanges of a great and widely 
extended nation ; and none ever, before, furnished a paper currency 



TRISTAM BURGE S. 336 

equally sound and uniform ; for, when measured by gold and silver, 
the great standard of value throughout the commercial world, the 
notes of this Bank have circulated, not only in this country, but in 
Europe, and among commercial men in the distant nations of Asia ; 
and have there been exchanged at a par, and in place of the most 
pure, coined metallic money, of the eastern or western world. Not- 
withstanding all these facts ; notwithstanding this institution was 
established by the people, and was intended by them to be, has 
been, and would now be, to them the great regulating and enrich- 
ing establishment among all their moneyed institutions, had not a 
usurpation of power, more gigantic and more destructive than any 
other, now wielded by any other earthly despotism, placed itself 
between this institution, and the prosperity of the people. Yet, those 
profligate instruments of this unrelenting despotism, the Executive 
Directors, appointed for such vile and mischievous purposes, have 
denounced the President and Directors of that institution as a col- 
lection of men made haughty, proud, and overbearing, by that 
control of the purse which has been committed to them by their 
appointment. 

Why, Sir, when these Presidential Directors arrived at Philadel- 
phia, and entered into the Bank ; when they looked around the 
counters, and beheld the masses of metallic wealth, regarded by 
them, long used to such labors, as the mere tools of the trade car- 
ried on in this their great workshop ; when they called to mind, if 
they possessed any such thing, that they were the especial Direc- 
tors of seven millions of those glittering glories, which lay shining 
before their eyes ; when, animated by such a thought, they men- 
tally exclaimed, like honest Caliban, influenced by the consoling 
beverage of Trinculo, " All this land is mind;" and when they, so 
totally unused to such sights and sounds, felt throughout their inward 
and outward man, in " entrails, heart and head, liver and reins," 
the overwhelming inebriation of all within them, and all around 
them, is it wonderful that they concluded that the people's Direc- 
tors, who, as they believed, had, for a much longer time, been 
swallowing these enlivening influences, were really as much intoxi- 
cated as they were themselves ? 

Is this wonderful ? Are there not diseases, which pervert even 
the very organ of vision? I remember to have been told the story 
of a very staid and sober personage, who had rarely seen, much 



336 SPEECHES OF 

less ever tasted and swallowed, that inebriating beverage, which 
makes brutes of so many men. It was the evil fortune of this man, 
on a certain time, to be present at some public " doings," where 
this potable mischief was presented, in all its alluring forms. He 
tasted, by accident, what some one had left unswallowed, at the 
bottom of a glass ; and, delighted at the taste, exclaimed to the 

keeper of the table, " I profess, Mr. , you know how to 

make a very pretty liquor." " Will you have a glass, Sir ?" was 
the reply. He laid down his four-pence-half-penny, and placing 
the tumbler of sling to his mouth, drained the the treacherous glass 
to the last drop. The moment he, unused as he was to such excite- 
ment, began to reel, every man on the green seemed to him to be 
staggering. He immediately took up the opinion, which he never 
relinquished until his last hour, and he solemnly averred, after he 
was carted home at night, that he did not on that day, see a sober 
man in all creation. 

Is it then wonderful, that these Executive Directors, intoxicated 
as they were at the sight of so much metallic money, should believe 
the President and Directors- appointed by the people, who had, for 
some time before, been swallowing, so to speak, with all their eyes, 
this enchanting vision of shining metal, were as much intoxicated, 
by the draught, as they were themselves. Narrow-minded men 
always attribute to others the little vices and meannesses, which fill 
up their own limited capacities. This President and those Direc- 
tors of the people, if proud at all, were, as honestly they might be, 
proud of a trust so important, earned by their talents, their skill, 
diligence, and fidelity, were regarded by the Executive Directors, 
because they could find no such qualities in their own minds, as 
proud of that control of money, which had given such an elevation 
of feeling, to their own light and unfurnished heads. 

With no better reason, the Executive counsellors have put it, in 
the mouths of these Presidential Directors, to denounce this institu- 
tion as a great moneyed monopoly. What is a monopoly? Is it 
not some establishment by law, which gives, to one set of men, a 
power of making profit by a business, from which all others are 
excluded ? A scheme which enables them to exclude from their 
trade that competition, which brings all business to nearly the same 
level of profit ? Has this institution a monopoly of banking ? Is it 
not one among nearly five hundred other banks ? Do not all these 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



337 



carry on the banking business under the continual operation of a 
universal competition ? Can any one of these, more than any other, 
realize a monopoly profit ? 

Has this Bank a monopoly of banking capital 1 Of private 
capital it has twenty-eight millions of dollars. All other banks 
have a capital of one hundred and twenty-four millions of dollars. 
Here is no monopoly of capital. 

In furnishing the currency of the country, this institution usually 
furnishes about twenty millions of dollars, while the various State 
banks supply about seventy millions of dollars. Here, then, is no 
monopoly, given to the United States Bank to make the national 
currency. 

It may not be practicable to compare these banks, in relation to 
their discounts, because those of the State banks are unknown ; but 
we can look at them more accurately, in respect to their profits, 
the great test of all monopolies. No matter how exclusvie any 
business may be in its operations, if it have no power of making 
profits, exclusively great. Should any State, or the United States, 
give to a company of projectors, with a capital of thirty-five millions 
of dollars, the exclusive right of collecting, preserving, and vending 
summer heat, with a view to profit, who would complain of this as 
a monopoly ? No man in his senses ; because no man in his 
senses would ever believe, that any profit could ever be made, by 
buying and bottling up sunbeams in July and- August, when that 
commodity was plenty and cheap, and preserving them until January 
and February, when they are scarce, and of course very dear. It 
is exclusive profit, and profit alone, which renders even a monopoly, 
oppressive and odious. What is the profit of State banks ? Not 
less than seven per cent, in all ; and in some it is not less than 
twelve. No man pretends, that the Bank of the United States will 
realize above six per cent, and few believe that it will reach even 
that amount on its capital. 

Here, then, is an institution of the people, denounced by the 
Executive as a money monopoly — one bank among five hundred 
others ; a bank with less than one-fourth of the whole banking 
capital, furnishing less than one-fourth part of the circulating bank 
currency ; and, after all, realizing, under all its pretended monopoly 
powers, more than one full seventh part less profits than all other 
banks realize. To what a mean and miserable condition are those 



338 



SPEECHES OF 



wretched echoes of Executive denunciation reduced, when, in the 
face of all the facts, and in defiance of their own common sense, 
and I had almost said honesty, they suffer themselves to be com- 
pelled, by the exactions of a relentless task-master, day after day, 
and hour after hour, to cry out, " monopoly ! monopoly !" when 
he, and they, and all men know, that this institution is no more a 
monopoly, than any other one of all the five hundred other banks 
in the country : no more a monopoly, Sir, than ploughing fields, or 
sailing ships, or spinning yarn, or cutting down trees in the forest. 
As if this tergiversation were not enough, these Executive Direc- 
tors have been instructed to denounce the whole stockholders of this 
institution, as a great aristocracy of wealth, dangerous to the liber- 
ties of the people. Yes, these men, twenty or thirty thousand of 
them, owning twenty-eight millions of dollars, and the whole people 
owning seven millions of dollars in this institution, are a great 
wealthy aristocracy. This mass of their wealth, like a great mass 
of manure, is, from the effluvia of its influence, dangerous to the 
health of liberty ; and, therefore, this mass should be levelled, and 
spread out, to enrich less fertile parts of the land. Why, Sir, truly 
our Chief Magistrate is " beginning to be a husbandman ;" for he is 
the first to strike his fork into this overabundant pile of manure 
and refresh his own selected and favorite spots, heretofore rather 
barren, with ten or fifteen millions of it. 

Pray, Sir, what is it, which renders the owners of thirty-five mil- 
lions, in a United States Bank and twenty-four branches, a wealthy 
aristocracy, dangerous to liberty ; when the owners of one hundred 
and twenty-four millions, in State banks, are all plain democrats ; 
and in no way perilous to that high attribute of the people? Aris- 
tocracy of wealth ! Dangerous to the liberty of the people ! The 
cant phrases these, of this aggregation of demagogues, Mho, with 
the Executive at their head, are laboring to aid him in placing his 
collar on the neck of one branch of Congress, and his foot on the 
other ; and with this control of the Legislature, he will secure to 
himself the treasure of the nation ; reduce the power of this great 
moneyed aristocracy, and thereby preserve the liberty of the peo- 
ple, from the deleterious influence of their own moneyed institutions, 
by taking out of their hands the dangerous power of regulating 
their own affairs of business, in such a manner aa they may think 
most conducive to their own interest. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



339 



Sir, let me say to you, and through you to the profligate minions 
of power, the drudging slaves of the palace, and to the haughty 
and imperious lord of that palace at their head, that this wealth of 
the people, is their own. It was earned by their toil, preserved by 
their economy, and will be secured by their vigilance and valor. 
One of the eldest curses of God, is on him who removes his neigh- 
bor's landmark ; and next to him, in execrable delinquency, is he 
who, without warrant of law, turns back the key, or breaks the 
lock, and thrusts his hand into his neighbor's coffers. Do not pre- 
tend to gull the working-men of America — and who does not work 
here, unless it be he who is fed by Executive patronage ? — by tell- 
ing them that their own wealth, managed by their own agents, will, 
unless it be preserved by Executive usurpation, subvert and destroy 
their liberty. 

Sir, these moneyed institutions, with the Bank of the United 
States at the head of them, regulating all the issues of Bank notes, 
and keeping the paper currency of the country at a par with gold 
and silver, and with the currency of other countries, were established 
by the people, in aid of their own reserved power, and right to work 
for themselves, and for their own individual emolument. These 
moneyed institutions put in motion, and render productive, the whole 
labor of the people, by land and by sea. 

Do you hear the sound of the axe, see the forests fall around, 
and the clearing extended over new regions ? It is the money of 
these institutions, which gave the first blow. Is the plough in motion 
on a thousand fields, and carrying culture to the very hill tops of 
your country ? This money of the people, sharpens the share, and 
feeds and invigorates the team. Do the sounds of your spindles and 
looms, make music with the sound of your waterfalls ; and are your 
fabrics sent into all parts' of our country, and to foreign nations ? 
The treasure, gathered and laid up by the people in these their 
moneyed establishments, was the great agent, moving all this ma- 
chinery. Are the saw and the hammer, heard over the whole 
country, building workshops, warehouses, mansions, temples, vil- 
lages, and cities ? What but this store of wealth, collected and laid 
up, by the labor and economy of the people, in the banking estab- 
lishments of our country, has called into activity the skill and the 
strength of mechanical labor, and thereby ornamented, as if by 
enchantment, the whole face of our country ? What sea is left un- 



340 SPEECHES OF 

vexed, by the oars or the keels of your fisheries or commerce ? 
Sir, not a line is drawn ; not a harpoon thrown ; not an oar blade 
glitters in the sun ; nor a sail whitens above the wave, without that 
invigorating current of vitality, the money of our country, which, 
feeding and sustaining every department of labor, puts it all into ani- 
mated and productive motion ; and which, for that great purpose, 
has, in former years, by so much toil, care, and economy, been 
earned, saved, and secured in your banking system — that great vital 
organ, propelling and circulating this life-blood of human industry, 
throughout every member and limb, of the whole vast and gigantic 
body of your .national labor. 

Yes, Sir, you did see or hear, by land or by sea, the movements 
of the axe, the saw, the hammer, the spindle, the loom, the oar, the 
sail ; and all put into motion, and productive efficiency, by this 
great system established by the people. You did see all these, in 
a most healthy, and active, and prosperous condition, until the ruth- 
less hand of unlicensed power, struck at the very heart of that 
athletic, and vigorous system ; and drew out that blood of life, which 
has left the arm of labor too feeble to be lifted up, and the whole 
body tottering, falling, and ready to perish. 

Sir, in what nation on earth, was ever such a ruthless conflict ? 
It is a war of the Executive, at the head of his army of office-holding 
minions and parasites, against the people, in their most vital and 
sacred interests : those money interests, by which the people sustain, 
and conduct those very labors, which furnish the revenues of the 
nation, and support the Government. This revenue was once small, 
two or three millions at most. It has since, in some years, arisen 
as high as thirty -six millions. We are told it will be, this year, 
thirty-two millions. 

From this revenue, drawn from the labors of the people, this 
Executive and his host of officers, receive their salaries. They are 
literally fed, clothed, and sheltered, by the labors of that very peo- 
ple whom they are thus fighting to destroy. What an unnatural 
war ! " It is as if this mouth should tear this hand for lifting food 
to it." 

The revenue of the nation is, I repeat, drawn from the labors of 
the people. By the Constitution, the people have given to Congress 
the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises ; for 
the purpose of paying the public debt, providing for the common de- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 341 

fence, and promoting the general welfare of the United States. 
The revenue raised, by these provisions, has been levied by laws 
enacted by Congress ; it has, until last October, been kept by laws 
enacted by Congress, appropriating that revenue, according to the 
provisions of the Constitution, to the great national purposes for 
which it was paid into the public coffers, by the people. This 
revenue, so paid into their treasury, by the people, constitutes, and 
is, the money power of the nation ; the great source of vitality and 
efficient action, in all parts of the great commonwealth of our 
country. 

Sir, there has been, during the last four or five years, a great 
effort, a continued labor and struggle, made by the Chief Magistrate 
of the United States, to bring into his own control this money power 
of the nation ; and thereby to unite, in his own hands, this over- 
whelming power, with the political power, vested in him by the 
Constitution. Permit me, Sir, in examining the question under de- 
bate, to consider the legal and Constitutional provisions, made to 
prevent the union of these two powers, in the hands of one man ; 
the efforts made by the Executive, to abolish these provisions ; the 
ultimate political purposes of these Executive efforts ; and, last of 
all, the condition of our country, if those political purposes should 
be established. From these several points of view, may be made 
all the observations and remarks, needful for me to make, on the 
Secretary's reasons, on the Resolution before us, or on the amend- 
ment of it sent up to the Chair by me. 

By the wisdom of those men who framed our Constitution, and 
established the present form of government, these two powers were 
separated. For they well knew, that, if the political power, and 
the money power of our country, should ever be grasped, and 
wielded, by one and the same man, the Constitution and the laws, 
and the liberties of the people, would be swallowed up and lost in 
his power ; and, whether the administration of that man might be 
mild and merciful, or, as it is now, outrageous and cruel, it must, 
and it would be a despotism. 

To establish and secure this separation, the Constitution, at the 
third section of the fourth article, vested in Congress the money 
power, by the following words : " Congress shall have power to 
dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
the territory and other property belonging to the United States." 

s* 



342 SPEECHES OF 

These words comprehend all the property owned by the people of 
the United States, as a nation, or community. The treasure, the 
public money, the money power, if it be property, and if it belong 
to the United States, the power not only " to make all needful rules 
and regulations" — that is, to enact laws, all needful laws, concern- 
ing that treasure ; but also the power " to dispose of it," is vested 
in Congress. This power, then, comprehends not only the legisla- 
tive power over this treasure, given by the words, " to make all 
needful rules and regulations ;" but also somewhat more than that 
legislative power ; and whatever is intended by the words, " to 
dispose of" that treasure, is vested in Congress. Now, Sir, what 
is, in common or legal language, meant or intended by the words 
" to dispose of," when applied to lands and tenements, goods and 
chattels 1 You make, to your agent, a deed of attorney, by which 
you empower him " to dispose of " all your property, in France or 
England. Is he not your trustee ; and do you not empower him 
to terminate, and take up all your relations of ownership, to any 
thing in which you may have property, in France or England ? 
Will there be any thing remaining to be done, concerning that 
property, which will render it necessary for you to constitute 
another agent, before all your property, in those countries, can be, 
for a suitable consideration, changed from your ownership to that 
of some other person ; and the proceeds brought over, and paid 
over into your hands 1 If a man make his last will and testament, 
and thereby empowers his executors " to dispose of " all his lands 
and other property, for the purposes set forth in that last will and 
testament ; will any thing be left for any other person to do, in this 
matter, after the executors shall so have "disposed of" such lands, 
and other property ? If a power to dispose of your property, in 
France or England, vests in your agent the power to do all, which 
you could, in that respect, do with such property ; and a power, 
given to executors, by the testator, to dispose of his lands, and other 
property, vests in such executors the power to do all with those 
lands, and other property, which the testator himself could have 
done, while in full life, for the same purposes ; then, a power, vested 
by the people in Congress " to dispose of" their treasure, their pub- 
lic money, does vest in Congress all the power to do with that 
treasure whatever the people themselves, if it were practicable for 
them to act, could do with it, for the purposes for which that power 



TRISTAM BURGES. 343 

was so vested in Congress. The power "to dispose of" property, 
therefore, means the power to do with it all, which can, under all 
existing relations of that property to all concerned in it, be done 
with or concerning it. This power " to dispose of," to do all with 
property, when vested in one person, does necessarily exclude all 
other persons from any power to do any thing with or concerning 
such property. If, therefore, Congress have all the power " to 
dispose of" the treasure of the nation, no other department of the 
Government can have any power " to dispose of" that treasure. If 
this power be, as it most certainly is, given to Congress, expressly, 
by so many words, in the Constitution, then is it most absurd to say, 
that the same power, to dispose of this treasure, this money power 
of the people, can, by any implication whatever, be given to the 
President. If, by the power "to dispose of" this treasure, be 
intended the power to do concerning it all things whatever which 
can be done with it, from the time when it goes out of the pockets 
of the people, and begins to be the treasure of the nation ; until it 
ceases to be the public treasure, and is disbursed, or paid away to 
all those persons, either employed in the public service, or entitled 
to receive it as public creditors, according to the purposes for which 
it was first levied and collected ; and if, by the Constitution, this 
whole power be vested in Congress ; then, all persons employed in 
the collection, in the keeping, or in the disbursing, and paying out 
this treasure, are, and must be, the agents of Congress ; and 
constituted and appointed, no matter by whom, to aid and assist 
them "to dispose of" this treasure; and are, and must be, ac- 
countable to them, and to them alone, for the diligence and fidelity 
wherewith they do and perform this service. According to this 
great principle, and to the provisions of the Constitution, that law 
was enacted, by which the Treasury Department was established. 
For that purpose, this Department was, by the law establishing it, 
made independent of the Executive branch of the Government. 
This law was approved on the 2d day of September, 1789. It was 
the twelfth enactment made by that illustrious Congress which 
organized and put into operation, our present form of Government. 
It was enacted upon the highest and most deliberate consideration ; 
and was one of the seventy-four laws, the formation and establish- 
ment of which employed the most distinguished men of this nation, 
during that laborious and protracted session from the fourth day of 



344 SPEECHES OF 

March, until the twenty-ninth of September, 1789, a duration of 
almost seven months. " Tantce moJis erat Romanam condere gentem." 
These men, many of them, had been members of the convention ; 
and well knew the limits and boundaries, fixed by the Constitution, 
to every department of that Government, which they had assisted to 
frame, and were then setting up, and putting into operation. Wash- 
ington was then Prcsideut ; and there was not a man in the United 
States, who, from his high confidence in that illustrious father of his 
country, would not rather have extended beyond, than contracted 
within the boundaries of the Constitution, that Executive power, 
which had been intrusted to his administration. This law was ap- 
proved by Washington, who had been president of the convention ; 
and who well knew the limits of power in each department of it, 
given by the Constitution ; how anxiously the framers of that Con- 
stitution had adjusted these powers, so as to form a great equilib- 
rium ; and how ruinous to the successful movement of the whole, 
might be any law, which might destroy, or even disturb, that great 
balance of those powers. He approved this law, by which, accord- 
ing to the provisions of the Constitution, giving to Congress the 
power " to dispose of" the public treasure, the department, where 
this treasure should be collected, kept, and disbursed, was made 
independent of the Executive power. Independent, not for the com- 
mencement of the official existence of its officers ; for that existence 
those officers must, by the Constitution, receive from the President 
and Senate : not for the termination of that official existence ; for 
that termination they, by the enactment of law, received from the 
President ; but independent in all their accountability, and entirely 
independent of the Executive, the President of the United States. 
This law has had but one reading. It has ever from September 
2, 1789, up to September 18, 1833, a duration of more than forty- 
four years, been read and understood, in one and the same language, 
meaning, and interpretation, during all that time ; by every Presi- 
dent of the United States, by every Congress of the United States, 
by every officer of the Treasury Department. By the unanimous 
voice of every public functionary, from the day of its enactment, up 
to that disastrous 18th day of September, this law has been pro- 
nounced to have established the Treasury Department, independent 
of the power of the President, in all the action, and all the account- 
ability of its officers. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 345 

By the provisions of this law — and who will say these provisions 
are unconstitutional ? — the Secretary of the Treasury, the Auditors 
of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the Treasury, the Register, and 
the Treasurer himself, all the officers of this Department, are not 
accountable to the President. Can this Department be, in any of 
its actions, dependent on the President ; and yet not one of its offi- 
cers be, in any one item of all his official life, accountable to him ? 
No matter who appoints, no matter who can remove ; accountability 
is the test of dependence. This demonstrates whose man, any man 
is ; whose agent, any agent must be. He is the agent, the depend- 
ent of him to whom he is accountable, for all the acts of his agency. 
Take the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer, the two 
great officers of that Department ; the one the collector, the other 
the keeper of the public money ; and to whom are they account- 
able ? Why, Sir, every man who has read this law, can, at once, 
tell you. They are accountable to the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives, to Congress ; " touching all things committed to them, 
or which shall appertain to their offices." If they are not account- 
able to the President, and never did, nor ever were called upon, or 
could be called upon, to account to him, who shall supervise and 
direct these officers ? Who shall take cognizance of their doings ? 
Who shall compare those doings with the laws under which they 
act, and thereby determine on their legality and correctness ? 
Those, most assuredly, to whom they are accountable ; not he who 
has no right to demand, receive, examine, or even so much as to see 
one item of all their accounts. Accordingly, Sir, you find that these 
officers, and others of that Department, do account, at the beginning 
of each session, to each House of Congress ; and their reports, the 
histories of their official transactions, done in aid of Congress " to 
dispose of" the public treasure, are referred to Committees in both 
those Houses. If all be correct, all passes in silence ; but should 
errors be detected, would not those errors be reported to each 
House by those Committees ? and could not, and would not those 
Houses call those officers before their bar to account for those er- 
rors, and to answer for any delinquency ? 

Now, Sir, what of all this was ever done by the President? 
Who, until since this new era in our Government, ever pretended 
that the President had, by the Constitution, power to do any one of 



346 



SPEECHES OF 



all those things which may be, and some of which continually are, 
done by Congress, in respect to these high Treasury officers ? 

For what high and important national purpose was this money 
power, by this provision of the Constitution, vested in Congress ? 
Why does this law, with all its enactments, so anxiously made, se- 
cure the Treasury Department from all dependence on the Execu- 
tive, and render it accountable to Congress alone ? Sir, all this was 
done to separate and to preserve, in a continual state of separation, 
the pecuniary power and the political power granted by the Consti- 
tution. In one word, to preserve the liberties of the people from 
that despotism in which they must be ingulfed and swallowed up by 
a union of both these powers in the hands of one man. Let those 
men, who, notwithstanding this express grant of the money power to 
Congress, do contend, and have so often told us, that this power is 
given by the Constitution to the President ; let them, with me, now 
examine that Constitution, and mark the words in it, which either 
expressly, or by any implication, direct or remote, give that, or any 
thing like that power to the President. I pray of every honest 
man in this House — I mean every man in this House — not to regard 
this as a dry and uninteresting inquiry. It is vital to our liberty ; 
and as we shall settle this question of Executive power, the Ameri- 
can people are free, and under the dominion of laws ; or slaves, and 
controlled by an absolute despotism. What has there been, what 
is there now, or ever will there be found, in the whole annals of our 
country, so important to all the interests of all the people as this 
great question ? If the people cannot achieve the repossession of 
this power, and restore it to their representatives, from whom it has 
been usurped by the Executive, then farewell, a long farewell to all 
their greatness, all their freedom, all their glory. 

What, then, are the powers of the President, as marked out and 
delineated by the Constitution ? and can the power to dispose of the 
national treasure be found among those powers ? You will find, 
Sir, a manifest difference in the words used by the Constitution, in 
the grant of power to Congress, and those used in the grant made to 
the President. It is declared in that great charter, that, " All leg- 
islative power granted by this Constitution shall be vested in a Con- 
gress, to consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." This 
was done, undoubtedly, because all legislative power could be, and 
ever since that time has been, exercised by thai ( tongrees. In the 



TRISTAM B URGES. 



347 



grant of power to the President, the Constitution says, " The Execu- 
tive power shall be vested in a President. The, not all the, Exec- 
utive power is, therefore, vested in him. Why not all, if it were 
intended that all the Executive power should be vested in that mag- 
istrate alone ? It is enough that it was not done ; but it was not 
done, for a very sufficient reason. The Executive power, but not 
all the Executive power, was vested in a President alone, because a 
President alone could not, by any possibility, do all the duties which 
such a grant would have required him to perform. A Congress 
might do all the legislative service of the people ; a President could 
not do all their Executive services ; and, therefore, all their legis- 
lative powers were vested in Congress ; and for the same reason, 
the, but not all the, Executive powers were vested in a President. 

A somewhat more intimate examination will disclose to us what 
Executive powers were intended to be vested in a President, and 
what also was intended by " Executive power." The Constitution 
after using this declaratory phrase, does, to cut off all implication 
which might be drawn from words so general, go on to name and 
describe every power which it grants to the President. Look at 
them all, Sir, and see if you can find the power " to dispose of" the 
treasure of the people among them all. 

First of all, he, the President, shall be Commander-in-Chief of the 
army. Can he, under this power, levy money from the people to 
pay, clothe, or subsist this army ? or, if such money be already 
collected, can he appropriate, and disburse it for those purposes ? 
It is not pretended. In the next place, " he shall be the Commander- 
in-Chief of the navy." Is he, by this grant of power, authorized to 
fill the public coffers from the pockets of the people ; or, if already 
filled, to empty them for the purpose of building, equipping, or sailing 
a navy 1 Not in the least ; nor have his most prostrate devotees 
yet claimed for him any such Constitutional power. In the third 
place, whenever Congress shall, by law, call out the militia to 
repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or execute the laws, he, the 
President, shall have such militia under his command. This grant 
gives him no power to collect or to disburse money to pay that 
militia, for any service so rendered, no matter how valuable or 
important to the country the same may have been. In all these 
cases, it is admitted on all hands, that Congress alone can raise, or 
appropriate, or pay any money for all or any of these purposes. 



4 

348 SPEECHES OF 

He has, in the fourth place, " power to reprieve or pardon, except 
in cases of impeachment." No one contends that, if, by this power, 
he can release a pecuniary penalty, he can, by the same power, put 
his hand into the treasure of the nation, and draw out thence 
money, to bestow a bounty on any condemned for delinquency. 
In the fifth place, the President can, " by and with the advice 
and consent of two-thirds of the Senate, make treaties." Is 
there a man in this House, so devoted to Presidential power, as 
to deny, that the Executive must come to this House for an appro- 
priation to carry such treaties into effect ? In the sixth place, " he 
may nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Se- 
nate, appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls." 
Can he pay them ? Must they not come here for the graduation of 
their salaries, outfits, contingents, and for appropriations to pay 
them ? Seventhly : " he may, by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, appoint Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other 
civil officers." Where is the man, who pretends that the President 
can pay them, or denies that Congress, and Congress alone, can fix 
the salaries of these officers, or raise, appropriate, and disburse the 
money for the payment of them ? In the eighth place, " he may 
appoint all such inferior officers as, by law, Congress authorize him 
to appoint ; but neither by law, nor by the Constitution, can he 
touch a cent to pay them for those services ; and they must look 
to the holders of the money power, to Congress, for compensation." 
Ninthly : " he may fill vacancies happening in. the recess of the 
Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the close of 
the next session." This power carries with it no money power ; 
and these officers, with all others, must look to Congress, into whose 
hands the people have intrusted their money, for the payment of 
their salaries. No mention is here made of the veto power, because 
that is not among executive powers ; nor is it a power to do and 
perform any thing, but simply a power to prevent the doing and 
performing of any thing. The power also of the President to take 
counsel from the high State officers, touching his own course, or to 
have their opinions concerning their own official duties, is here 
omitted, because it is reserved for separate consideration. In all 
these executive powers no mention of, no adhesion to, no implication 
concerning, any, the least grant of the power " to dispose of the 
public treasure of the nation," can in any form of words be found ; 



TRISTAM B URGES. 349 

there is no pretence to say, nor has any person said, or will any- 
one be found to say, that any such power is given to the President, 
under any words of the Constitution, hitherto examined. 

It is readily seen, that some of these powers essentially differ 
from others, and they may be divided into such as are continual, 
and such as are occasional ; the occasional have no efficient exist- 
ence, but for the specific purposes for which they are granted. 
When that purpose has been effected, these powers are again qui- 
escent, or dormant, and can give no aid in the performance of any 
other Executive act. Such is the power to reprieve or pardon. 
This power is occasional, a pro hac vice power, and can have no 
efficient existence, but when a case for reprieve or pardon comes 
into existence. Of the same character is the treaty-making power ; 
it is, for all other purposes, as if it never existed, until a treaty may be 
required to be made. The power to nominate and appoint foreign 
ministers, Judges of the Supreme Court, or other civil officers, is of 
the same occasional kind ; so is the power to appoint inferior offi- 
cers, or to fill vacancies happening in the recess of the Senate : 
these powers are all occasional ; have no existence when not called 
yp by the occurrence of the events on which they are to act ; and 
do not, and cannot, increase the Executive power, in any respect, 
I for any other purpose. For example, under the power to reprieve 
and pardon, what else, what thing, can the President do other than 
reprieve and pardon ? If nobody transgress, if nobody be con- 
, demned, then this power, not having any occasion to act, will have 
I no active existence ; and will be as if it never had been. From all 
these occasional powers, the President can, therefore, derive no 
general power, nor does any one of them help any other of them, 
by any collocation or extension of those powers. 

Far otherwise is it with the other class of powers — those which 
| are continual, and endure in the hands of the President from the 
j. commencement to the close of his Executive term of service. These 
J powers are three ; first, the power to command the army ; second, 
i the power to command the navy ; and third, the power to command 
the militia, when called into active service, for any of those pur- 
poses for which Congress is constitutionally empowered so to call 
out that militia. These are the enduring constitutional powers of 
the President ; and do, in truth, make him what he is, the Chief 
Magistrate, the Executive. They constitute the potentia. reipubli- 

T* 



350 SPEECHES OF 

cce, ; the posse communitatis ; the power of the sword ; " the Exec- 
utive power," the potentiality of the nation, by which the President 
is made what, wanting this, he could not be — the Executive. He 
may not have any of all the other powers vested in him by the 
Constitution ; and still, if he have the power of the sword, he will 
be the Executive ; but without this power of the sword, if he have 
all the other powers, he is not the Executive, because he has not 
that power which, by the Constitution, is called, and, in the nature 
of things, is, "the Executive power." 

The Executive power, the power of the sword, is all the power 
continually abiding with the President, to enable him to discharge 
any duties, other than those discharged by him, under the specific 
powers already enumerated. Has he any other services to per- 
form ? He has. Let us see what they are. He shall, from time 
to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union ; 
and recommend to their consideration, such measures as he shall 
judge necessary and expedient. This duty, like many of his 
powers, is occasional ; not of every day obligation and perform- 
ance ; but is, by custom in ordinary times, confined to the opening 
of each session of Congress. When done, it is done and finished f<jr 
the political year. By a second duty, he may, on extraordinary 
occasions, convene one or both Houses of Congress. He will then, 
under the special obligations of his high duties, communicate to Con- 
gress, or to either House, as the case may be, the extraordinary 
occasion which has induced this call. If the two Houses, called 
together on such extraordinary occasions, disagree as to the time to 
which they shall adjourn, for the purpose of finishing this extraor- 
dinary business ; the President may, on such disagreement, at such 
extraordinary session, adjourn them to such time as he shall think 
proper. This duty is not of ordinary or every day occurrence ; 
but is, in every part of it, confined to such extraordinary occasions, 
as may require an extraordinay call of Congress. When once 
done, it is done for years. It is long since, and I pray God it may 
be a long time yet to come, before the condition of our country shall 
encounter any such extraordinary course of events, as may require 
extraordinary sessions of Congress, or either House of Congress ; 
and, by any possibility, call the Executive to the painful duty of 
adjourning either of those Houses, to a time disagreeable to their 
wishes. 



fRISTAM BURGE8. 



351 



In the third place, it shall be the duty of the President to receive 
or accredit ambassadors, and other public ministers. This too is 
an occasional duty, to be performed when, and only when, such 
foreign ministers may, by foreign Powers, be sent to this Gov- 
ernment. It calls for the exercise of no continual diligence or 
power. In the fourth place, the President shall commission all the 
officers of the United States. This is no continuous, but an occa- 
sional duty ; and requires the exercise of none but occasional pow- 
ers and diligence. One duty more makes up the whole Presidential 
catalogue of duties. He shall " take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed." This is not, in its nature, occasional, but it may prac- 
tically become so. It is a duty, in its character of continuousness, 
and requirements of service, exactly corresponding with the contin- 
ual powers of the President. All his powers except that of the 
sword ; his power to command the army, the navy, the militia, are 
occasional ; and all his duties, except it be to take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed, are also occasional. His duty requir- 
ing him to give information, or recommend measures to Congress ; 
to call extra sessions, or to adjourn them ; to receive foreign minis- 
ters, or to commission United States' officers ; call on him, when 
these occasions call on him, for the performance of those duties ; 
but at no other times, and by no other occurrences. In like manner, 
his reprieving and pardoning power, his treaty-making power, his 
nominating and appointing power, can be called into efficient exist- 
ence, by no events, but those occasional events, on which alone 
they can be exercised and exhausted. These occasional powers, 
like his occasional duties, give him no power to do any other acts ; 
as they place no obligation upon him to perform any other duties. 
His occasional duties, and occasional powers, have no necessary 
connexion with his continual duty and continual powers ; nor can 
his occasional powers aid him in the discharge of his continual duty, 
any more than his occasional duties could be performed by his con- 
tinual powers. His continual powers are those of Commander-in- 
Chief ; and his continual duty is " to take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed." All his other duties and powers are occa- 
sional. These powers, and this duty, are of every day and con- 
tinual existence, in potentiality and obligation. 

If it be inquired how shall this duty be performed, there can be 
but one answer. The obligation of every human duty, is measured 



35% SPEECHES OF 

by the powers, conferred on man to perform that duty. When men 
measure out duties to one of their fellow-men ; and confer powers 
on him, to perform those duties ; they do expect, and they cart ex- 
pect of him that performance, and that only, which he may do by 
the exercise of the powers, which they have conferred on him, for 
that purpose. Every power, other than that of Commander-in- 
Chief, was conferred on him, and must be exercised by him, for 
other purposes than thereby " to take care that the laws be faith- 
fully executed." For the discharge of this duty, this care, he has, 
therefore, no other power than this high potency of the republic, the 
Executive power, the office of Commander-in-Chief, of the whole 
united force of the nation. By the exercise of this power, he is to 
discharge this duty. Does this high power give him any Constitu- 
tional control of the national money ? Has it not been demon- 
strated, by this analysis of Presidential power, that, though he can 
command, yet he cannot pay, clothe, or subsist either the army, 
navy, or militia, under his command"? Nay, Sir, this commanding 
power is wisely limited, by the Constitution ; for Congress alone 
can raise and support armies ; provide and maintain a navy ; call 
forth the militia ; or make rules for the Government of the land 
and naval forces ; and appropriate money for their pay, support, 
and maintenance. The power of the President is the command of 
the army, the navy, the militia ; but the laws, regulating those 
forces, and appropriating or disbursing money for their pay, clothing 
and subsistence, can be enacted by no other power than Congress. 

Does it appear, by any express grant, or by any implication of 
the Constitution hitherto examined, that the money power of the 
nation is, together with his high powers, given to this Captain-Gen- 
eral of the United States ? No one will pretend that any of his 
occasional powers has any connexion with this money power ; and, 
if conferred, by conferring the power of the sword, it must be 
because "laws are silent among arms ;" and he who has the mili- 
tary power can compel from all other powers, a submission to his 
will. This, indeed, is the new theory ; under this the Executive is 
now administering the finances of the nation — a theory, not of the 
Constitution, but of no Constitution : for where force begins, 
there laws and the Constitution end. Having followed the Presi- 
dential powers up to this boundary, and found among them no Con- 
stitutional control of the public money, I will follow him and his 



T K 1 S T A M BURGES. 353 

powers no farther in this direction ; for who can tell what powers he 
may now have over the national treasure, or over the national lib- 
erty, when he has advanced into that region of utter and unconsti- 
tutional despotism, where the great landmarks of law and justice 
and national good faith, are not only disregarded, but entirely 
unknown ? 

Notwithstanding this, we are told by the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and his advocacy in this House and elsewhere, that the 
whole power over the public money, to be deposited in the United 
States Bank and its branches, is, by the charter given to him, and 
through him to the President, the great Executive head of the 
nation. Can this be so ? If the Constitution do not give to the 
President the money power, can Congress bestow this power upon 
him? Can Congress amend the Constitution, and without any 
sanction, or even the knowledge of the people, make a new distri- 
bution of power ? If this money power be given, as it is expressly 
given to Congress, not only to legislate concerning, but also " to 
dispose of it," can Congress transfer to the President either the 
power to legislate upon, or " to dispose of," this treasure of the 
people ? Not a man in this nation holds to any such doctrine. 
Congress, if it could do this, might also transfer any other of its 
Constitutional powers to the President. The day might come, under 
the growth and progress of political subserviency, when a Congress 
of Tories, devoted to the claims of the Executive, might confer on 
him the taxing power, the army-raising power, the war-making 
power, the appropriating power ; and nothing would be left to 
do but to create offices and salaries, and to appoint these devo- 
tees of Executive power to fill these offices, and the nation would 
be, as France was under Napoleon, furnished with a constitu- 
tional despotism. However anxious the Tories of our times may 
be to exercise this power, they must now wait until the people shall 
have bestowed it upon them, before they enact any law vesting any 
power in the Executive department of the Government, not vested 
there by the Constitution. This Bank charter, therefore, if it grant 
the money power to the Executive, is, so far as it makes that grant, 
utterly nugatory and void. 

The Secretary and his advocates have labored, by another impli- 
cation, to place this power in the hands of the Executive. He and 
they tell us that this Secretary's duties, in this behalf, are altogether 



354 SPEECHES OF 

executive, and consist in executing certain laws ; but the President 
is at the head of the Executive, and is by his duty required " to 
take care that the laws be faithfully executed." He cannot, as 
they inform us, do this, unless he supervise and direct those men, 
who, as so many instruments in his hands, execute those laws. 
This is the definition given of this Presidential duty — the duty to 
take care that the laws be faithfully executed : he must, to discharge 
this duty, supervise and direct those men who execute those laws. 

The friends of the President do not seem to be aware of the 
prodigious task, which, by this definition of his duty, they have 
placed upon him. It is his duty, say they, and he has taken an 
oath to perform it ; it is his duty " to supervise and direct," the 
officers engaged in the execution of the laws. If he can supervise 
and direct the Secretary of the Treasury in the discharge of his 
fiscal duties, his control of the public money, he can have that 
money disposed of as he may choose ; and, therefore, he, by this 
interpretation of his own duty, gets the control of that money power 
— that power " to dispose of" the national treasure, which the 
Constitution expressly vested in Congress. Let us examine this 
theory. 

The Presidential duties are to be discharged by the Presidential 
powers, and both of these powers are established by the Constitu- 
tion. It has been demonstrated that all the powers of the President, 
except that of Commander-in-Chief of the army, navy, and militia, 
in actual service, are occasional, and were given and can be exer- 
cised for no other purposes than those occasional purposes. His 
Constitutional duty " to take care that the laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted," as it can be executed by none but his Constitutional powers, 
must be, and can be, executed by none but his Constitutional power 
of Commander-in-Chief of the army, navy, and militia in actual 
service. Pie has no other powers but his occasional powers, which 
come into existence and expire with the occasions for which that 
existence was given to them. If you measure the discharge of this 
duty by the power given to the Executive to discharge it — and by 
what else can you measure its extent ? — then must the President 
" take care that the laws be faithfully executed," by the exercise 
of his powers of Commander-in-Chief of the army, or the navy, or 
the militia — one or all of them. He has no other continuous, every 
day, and all the time enduring power. What, then, is the fair Con- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 355 

stitutional meaning of this duty of the President, " to take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed." A power auxiliary to this was 
given to Congress, and the rehearsal of that power will at once 
suggest the nature and extent of this duty. " Congress shall have 
power to call out the militia to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, 
and execute the laws." When this militia shall have been called 
out, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of that national force, 
called out to execute the laws ; and the President, as their Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and in the exercise of his Constitutional powers, 
shall " take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Here his duty 
and his power stand and move together, and the possession of the 
one enables him to discharge and perform the other. What, then, 
is it for the Commander-in-Chief of the militia called into actual 
service, and, if need be, the army and navy, to take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed? Is it not to take care that no obstacle 
either by invasion of the country from abroad, or from insurrection 
made in any part of it at home, may be efficiently placed, or suf- 
fered to remain, in the way of that faithful execution of those laws ? 
Here the Executive power — the power of the sword — the power 
of Commander-in-Chief, the only continuous power of the President, 
may be exercised ; and, by that exercise, the great Executive duty 
of taking care that the laws may be faithfully executed, is fully and 
efficiently done and performed. 

The arrangement of the Departments is made so as to confirm 
this exposition of this Executive duty. The Secretary of War is 
denominated the principal officer of that Department, in the same 
manner as the lieutenant is denominated the chief or principal officer 
of the ship. So is the Secretary of the Navy denominated the 
principal officer of that Department for the same reason ; and both 
are so denominated because the President, as Commander-in-Chief 
of the army and the navy, is the head of those two Departments. 
These Departments receive orders and directions from the President 
and make their reports annually, or oftener, to him. 

The Department of State, by the theory of the Government, 
belongs to the President and Senate, because they have power of 
regulating our foreign relations by treaties, and by the appointment 
of ambassadors, and other public ministers ; but as the President 
accredits all foreign ministers, and is always at the seat of Govern- 
ment, and in the exercise of his office, but they are not either there, 



35$ SPEECHES 01 

or in the exercise of their office, at all times, the Department of* 
State has practically been committed to the President. For this 
reason, he gives orders and directions to the Secretary of that De- 
partment, who is, by law, the principal officer of it under him ; and 
accordingly, this Department is denominated an Executive Depart- 
ment ; and the Secretary does annually, or oftener, make his reports 
to the President. 

This theory of Executive duty, and Executive power, is in perfect 
accordance with the law establishing the Treasury Department : for 
while the three Departments of War, of the Navy, and of Foreign 
Affairs, are denominated Executive Departments, and the Secretary 
of each is called the principal officer of it, indicating, as is the fact, 
that some superior dignitary is at the head of them all, and the 
President is that dignitary, that head ; the Treasury is not denom- 
inated an Executive Department, nor is the Secretary denominated 
the principal officer of it ; but it is denominated " the Treasury 
Department ;" and the Secretary, so says the law, " shall be deemed 
the head of that Department." 

Whence these distinctions ? They have grown out of the seve- 
ral powers, vested in the several branches of the Government, by 
the Constitution. The Departments of State, War, and Navy, are 
immediately connected with the powers, either continuous or occa- 
sional, of the President. The State Department contains the ar- 
chives of the treaty-making and ambassador- appointing and receiv- 
ing power ; the foreign relations of our nation committed to the care 
of the President and Senate. The War Department, in like man- 
ner, is the depository of the archives of the army, over which the 
President is the Commander-in-Chief. The Navy Department 
holds a like relation to that arm of your national defence, and is, in 
like manner, under the command of the President. These Depart- 
ments are Executive Departments, not because they are so denom- 
inated by the laws establishing them, but because these Departments, 
and the officers employed in them, are employed in such services 
as immediately relate to, and aid in, the exercise of those Executive 
powers vested in the President ; his occasional power to make 
treaties, receive or appoint public ministers, or his powers as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces of the nation. 

On the'eontrary, the Treasury Department is not an Executive 
Department, for a much better reason than because the law has not 



TRISTAM BURGES. 357 

denominated it by such a name ; it is because not one of the duties, 
to be performed in it, has any connexion with any one of all the 
Executive powers, either continuous or occasional, vested in the 
President by the Constitution ; nor does one of the officers, in that 
Department, perform any service connected with any one of those 
Executive powers, or in any way aiding or assisting him in the 
Constitutional exercise of them. Its whole duties relate to powers 
exclusively vested in Congress ; the power to legislate concerning 
the public treasure ; and to dispose of that treasure ; and all its 
officers, no matter by whom appointed, or by whom removable, are 
accountable, not as those of the State, War, and Navy Departments 
are, to the President, but to Congress alone. 

In what manner, then, can the President bring his Executive 
powers, his power of the sword, his high office of Commander-in- 
Chief of the land and naval force of the United States, so to bear on 
the Treasury Department, that he may, by any supervision and 
direction of the officers of it, be enabled " to take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed" by those officers ? If he cannot do this by 
these powers, can he do it by his reprieving power, by his treaty- 
making power, or by his nominating and appointing powers ? Jf 
he cannot supervise and direct these officers, by the exercise of any 
or all these powers, then by what principle can he be called upon to 
do this duty, if the Constitution have conferred on him no other 
power to perform it ? For let it never be forgotten that the amount 
of power bestowed does always fix the limits to all duties required 
by such bestowment. If you contract with your friend to carry to 
Philadelphia, and pay in that city, ten thousand dollars to your cor- 
respondent ; but if you furnish him with no more than five to carry, 
can you make any honest, common sense men believe that it is the 
duty of your friend to pay the other five thousand for you, out of 
his own pocket ? If you cannot succeed in making men believe 
this, I verily think you will not bring the people to believe that, by 
making the President Commander-in-Chief of their land and naval 
forces, they expected from him any other care of their money than 
what he might bestow upon it, by commanding that force, so as to 
repel invasions, if such should be made ; suppress insurrection, 
whenever it arise ; and " take care that the laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted," if they should, at any time, be resisted. 

u* 



358 SPEECHES OF 

Sir, this people will not forget that they have, by the Constitution, 
bestowed on Congress the power to make all needful laws, concern- 
ing this money, together with the further power " to dispose of" 
this their treasure ; to do with it, all which could be done, by collect- 
ing, keeping, appropriating, and paying it away, for all those great 
purposes, for which, it was intrusted to their care and fidelity. 
This power bestowed, originates a corresponding duty, in Congress, 
to discharge the trust ; and as the power is exclusive, so also is the 
duty. No other branch of the Government has this power ; and, 
therefore, no other branch can be liable to perform, or can perform 
this duty, or in any way whatever, constitutionally, make any dis- 
position of this national treasui*e. Still we have been told, that the 
Executive duty of the President, calls him " to take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed ; and that to do this he must supervise 
and direct those officers, those persons, who are employed in the 
execution of the laws." Let us examine this duty, under this polit- 
ical glossary on its meaning. If it be the duty of the President, to 
supervise and direct one, it is equally his duty to supervise and 
direct all. Where else will you begin, where will you stop, if less 
than all are to be supervised and directed 1 Men are to be super- 
vised and directed, because they are employed in executing the 
laws ; and, therefore, all, who are so employed, are so to be super- 
vised and directed. Are gentlemen, who put this gloss on the 
Presidential duty, aware of the task, which they lay upon this dis- 
tinguished individual, now somewhat old, and, it may be, weary with 
service ? A very short analysis of official employments will show 
the extent of this new Executive duty. 

The Treasury Department alone, the object of all this ambition 
of labor, will require much supervision and direction. It is divided 
into two great sections : one relates to the revenue, derived from 
the lands ; the other, to that drawn from the customs. These are 
here, at the seat of power, separated into several divisions ; and we 
find a Secretary of the Treasury, Auditors, Comptrollers, a Regis- 
ter, a Solicitor, a Commissioner of the Land Office, and Treasurer. 
Not only is the Secretary to be supervised and directed ; but each 
of the principal officers requires the performance of the same duty. 
This is not all. In each of these divisions are, on an average, per- 
haps, ten clerks. These are employed in nothing else but execu- 
ting the laws ; and must, each of them, be supervised and directed. 



TRISTAM B U R G E S. 359 

Your land offices are several hundred, not located here, but scat- 
tered throughout all the new States, and Territories, over a distance 
of several thousand miles. All these have officers, if not clerks, 
assistants and surveyors ; all are, or should be, executing the laws ; 
and all must, under this new theory, be supervised and directed. 
Your custom-houses are in number four or five hundred ; scattered 
along the maritime frontiers, and now up your rivers, and on the 
lakes ; each of these has a collector, a deputy, a naval officer, a 
surveyor, guagers, measurers, and I know not how many inspec- 
tors. The names of these officers in the port of New-York alone 
covers, I think, six or eight pages in the biennial of the public ser- 
vice. All these are, or ought to be, employed in executing the 
laws ; and all of them are, if any men so employed are, to be 
supervised and directed, and continually, by this all-seeing and all- 
directing Executive ! 

All these are but a small part of Presidential duty. The War 
Department has its various bureaus and divisions ; with a Commis- 
sioner of Pensions, a Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Indian 
Agencies, wherever so many of that oppressed people can be found, 
as to make their plunder such an addition to the salary as may 
excite official cupidity. These, scattered up and down the wilder- 
ness, in the new settlements, and wide territories, are said to be 
employed in executing the laws ; and so may require the supervis- 
ing eye and directing voice of Executive duty. In addition to a 
Secretary of this Department, Commissioners and heads of bureaus, 
and clerks, all to be supervised, and directed, wherever a division of 
your army is stationed, from Nova Scotia to the Rocky Mountains, 
from the ocean to the lakes, either in fortresses, in barracks, in 
cantonments, or in tents, there every officer, and soldier, drummer, 
and fifer, is on duty, is executing the laws ; and under this new 
system of discipline, none of all these should be without the super- 
vision and direction of the commander-in-chief. All these are but 
parts of the great field of Presidential supervision. The foreign 
relations of our country are conducted by your Secretary of State, 
and all his clerks here, and your public ministers in various courts 
of other nations in South America and Europe, together with your 
consuls in every commercial nation throughout the world. Each 
one of all these calls for the supervising and directing care of your 
great man of all business : not only to this Secretary and his clerks, 



360 SPEECHES O F 

at home ; but, at the same time, demands his attention, and over- 
looking direction of all those ministers, and consuls, in foreign 
courts, and among all nations. 

At the same time, your Post Office establishment should not be 
passed by in the daily and hourly overlooking and directing labor 
and travail of the Executive. If any men, in the whole array of 
public officers, demand a care " that the laws be faithfully executed 
by them," such men may, probably, be found in this extensive 
establishment. The office here is divided into bureaus for appoint- 
ment, bureaus for dismissal, bureaus for contracts, and now a new 
bureau is established for borrowing. These all have their chiefs, 
their clerks, their messengers ; and, if all are employed in execu- 
ting the laws, then must the supervision and direction of the Presi- 
dent be there ; and to what part of the service can it be more impe- 
ratively called ? How can this duty be discharged here in this 
city, when more than ten thousand post offices are elsewhere 
established in your cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, and road- 
sides, wherever there are men enough to find among them a faith- 
ful deputy of the distinguished chief of this gigantic establishment ? 
In all these offices, men, with their sub-deputies, clerks, messengers, 
and political runners, are, as it is said, employed in executing the 
laws. All these must be daily seen by that Presidential eye, which 
not only sees, but oversees all men so employed. To these must 
be added all contractors, all carriers by water, whether in row- 
boats, sail-boats, steam-boats ; or, by land, on horses, in sulkies, in 
wagons, in carriages, of two or four horses, in all their lines and 
routes, moving, as we are told, ten thousand miles per diem faster 
than they moved in the old slow and sure way of the last preceding 
Postmaster General. The whole annual travel, knotted together, 
and stretched out, in one line, is, we are told, twenty-seven millions 
of miles ; a thread of movement winding more than one thousand 
times round this terrestrial ball in one year. No matter how 
rapidly, or which wa)>-, or what and how many routes, the univer- 
sal eye of the Presidential oversight must keep pace with and be 
hourly upon them, not only at all their stations, but in all their 
movements, if he take care, in manner as his partisans tell us he 
has sworn '•' to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed." 

Once more : there is one other call on this supervising and direct- 
ing energy of the Executive. You have a Navy Department — a 



tribtam b urges. 301 

branch of the public service in high favor with the people ; and 
although, from the talents, skill, and valor of our naval marine, as 
well as the diligence, ability, and faithfulness of the commissioners, 
and the great industry and satisfactory services of the Secretary of 
that distinguished department of the national defence, there may be 
a less imperative call here for the unwinking eye and untiring labor 
of Presidential supervision, yet must he see all, look over all, direct 
all, if, according to the new exposition of his duty, he " take care 
that the laws be faithfully executed" by all. This Department 
has two branches here in this city, with a Secretary of one, and 
commissioners of the other, and with clerks and messengers of both. 
The President must be with each and all of these. You have men 
employed in collecting materials for your ships ; others are repair, 
ing ; others are building ; others are fitting out ; and others are 
sailing the various ships of your navy, wherever their orders may 
direct their course. You have ships, as it may be the case, in the 
Baltic, in the Mediterranean, down in the Levant, on the Grecian 
Archipelago, in the stormy Euxine, or on the far-off Indian Ocean, 
or on the deep Atlantic, and in the wide Pacific. All these are 
employed in executing the American laws, in bearing the thunder 
of the American arms, and displaying the bright zones, the spark- 
ling galaxy of the American Union, over every sea and every 
ocean, in view of all the nations of the world. He who, as his devo- 
tees announce, has sworn " to take care that those laws be faith- 
fully executed," must supervise and direct ; must see and oversee ; 
and, therefore, must be present with and on board each and all 
these your ships, in all the waters of the world ; in every port 
wherever an anchor is cast ; on every wave wherever a sail is 
spread out to the wind ; in the breeze, the storm, the battle ; at all 
times when, in all places where, the boatswain pipes all hands to 
quarters, or the jovial mariner heaves at the windlass, or hauls at 
the halyard, and raises his joyous yo ! heave oh ! above the note 
of the billows. 

Yes, Sir, if your President must " take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed," by supervising and directing those who are 
employed in the execution of them ; he must see them, be with 
them, speak to them, wherever this service may call them, at all 
times, and in all places, by land, and by sea, in this and all other 
countries. Can he overtake, can he keep pace with these multifa- 



362 SPEECHES OF 

rious and almost uolimitedly extended duties ? If he take the 
wings of the morning ; nay, if mounted on the swift- winged arrows 
of light, lie may struggle, but he can never overtake, much less 
pause to perform, the numberless requirements of this service. 
This man has, at times, been noted for several distinguished excel- 
lencies, by several of his devoted followers. In the moments of 
political adoration, one has hailed him as the "greatest and best." 
Another, "has lived long enough for glory ;" because he had lived 
under the blaze of his effulgence for more than a whole year, in 
the service of such a chieftain. Another, in the inebriation of some 
triumphant acquisition of office, bestowed by him alone, has toasted 
this adorable combination of flesh and blood, as " the Rock of 
Ages." What excuse drawn from all these effusions, poured out 
in the moments of intoxicating success, or intoxicating potations, 
can justify this sober, considerate apotheosis ; this legislative blas- 
phemy of all that is high, and eternal ; this bestowment of divine 
attributes, on a President of the United States, by assigning to him 
duties to perform, which can be performed by no being, unless he 
be endowed with ubiquity and omniscience, the adorable and eter- 
nal attributes of Deity alone ? It cannot, therefore, be the duty of 
the President to supervise and direct those who are employed in 
executing the laws ; because, if he must supervise and direct one, 
he must supervise and direct all ; but it is physically impossible, for 
no human being can perform a service requiring his bodily presence, 
and mental attention, at many thousand different places, distant frdm 
each other many thousand miles, and all at one and the same time. 
Let, then, the Presidential duty be limited, not only by his physical 
and intellectual, but also by his Presidential powers. Let him have, 
and, when required by law, exercise THE Executive power. Let 
him be the commander-in-chief of the land and naval force of the 
United States ; and when, by foreign force, or domestic insurrec- 
tion, the laws are resisted, let him " take care that those laws be 
faithfully executed." 

This duty of the Secretary is not, as he has told us, an Execu- 
tive, but a judicial duty. The Bank was accused of a violation of 
its contract with the United States, touching the national money. 
Both the facts and the law were before the Secretary. He is the 
sole judge, in the first instance. He found, as he says, the Bank 
guilty ; he so adjudged ; and what was his judgment ? Why, Sir, 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



363 



that the national money be no longer deposited in the United States 
Bank or its branches. The execution issued on this judgment, his 
order and direction, was sent by him, to collectors of the revenue, 
and to the Treasurer of the United States, no longer to deposite that 
revenue, in that Bank. 

The facts and the law, the whole record of the case, furnish the 
reasons of this judgment ; and are, with the execution issued upon 
it, that is, the order and direction of the Secretary, by him laid be- 
fore Congress, the ultimate tribunal, as his reasons for his judgment 
and execution ; and to be approved and confirmed, or not approved, 
and reversed by Congress. What is there, in all this, any more 
Executive, any less judicial, than would have been found in a trial 
before a court and jury, on a scire facias issued, by order of Con- 
gress, or of the President 1 Nothing whatever. Could the President 
supervise, and direct the court and jury? Not yet. How, then, 
could he supervise and direct the Secretary, in the formation of his 
judgment ? The Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller, 
are judicial officers, in many cases of seizure and forfeiture ; in 
many cases of relinquishment of fines, or claims for debenture. In 
many of these cases, appeals are had to higher tribunals ; and in 
all, petitions may be offered to Congress ; but when was it known, 
that the President interfered ; or that he was the power to which 
appeals were made, or petitions preferred ? Never, never, Sir, in 
the whole history of our Government. It cannot be done. It would 
be utter and unquestionable usurpation, in him, to meddle with any 
such question ; both because the power, exercised in this case, is 
purely judicial, and the judicial power is independent of the Execu- 
tive ; and also because the Executive branch of the Government is, 
by the Constitution, excluded from all control of the money con- 
cernments of the nation. 

I will not go into any examination of the duties of the Treasury. 
Every one can do it for himself. Whoever may do this, by look- 
ing over the law, will find not one duty of one of those officers, 
which any person, other than such officer, can either perform, or 
direct the manner of its performance. 

Sir, I have hitherto purposely omitted all reference to one Presi- 
dential power, because it was my intention to devote to it a separate 
and more specific consideration. This power is bestowed on the 
President by these words : " He may require the opinion, in writing. 



364 SPEECHES OF 

of the principal officer, in each of the Executive Departments, upon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices. Al- 
though it has been demonstrated from the Constitution what are the 
Executive Departments, and who are the principal officers in them ; 
and thereby that the Treasury Department is not one of them, nor 
the Secretary of the Treasury a principal officer, in the constitu- 
tional meaning of the words ; yet, to place the argument beyond 
the cavil of partizan debate, let it be admitted that the President 
might, under this power to require written opinions, call on Mr. 
Duane, on the 18th of last September, for his opinion in writing, 
concerning his duty in respect to the removal of the public money 
from the United States Bank and its branches. What is to be 
inferred from all this ? If the President had the power to require 
this opinion, then it was the duty of Mr. Duane to give it. If it 
were his Constitutional duty to give this opinion, then, he had the 
Constitutional power to give his opinion. If he had the power to 
give it, he had the power to form it. For he could have no opinion 
on the question, and so could give none, until he had first formed it. 
He must give this opinion in writing. It has been seen that the 
question is, in its nature, judicial ; the opinion formed upon it is, 
therefore, a judicial opinion ; an opinion on the law and on the 
facts. This opinion, when formed and reduced to writing, would 
be a judgment of Mr. Duane placed on the records of the Treasury 
Department. He would, then, in compliance with this Presidential 
requirement, give his opinion in writing to the President, by giving 
to him a correct draft of his opinion so recorded. The Secretary 
of the Treasury, then, having the power to give his opinion, because 
the President had power to require it, has not only the power freely, 
and without being under any Executive control, to form that opin- 
ion ; but, also, to have, hold, and keep that original opinion, formed 
in his own mind, together with the written record of it, in the 
archives of the Treasury Department. Once more : If Mr. Duane 
had the power to give, to form, to have, hold, and keep the memo- 
rial of this opinion, both in his own mind, and on the Treasury 
record, then he had the Constitutional power, and right, to act, 
whenever he did act on this great question, according to this opin- 
ion, so formed and preserved, unless it be contended, successfully, 
that the President has power to require a high officer of the nation, 
one of his constitutional counsellors, to form opinions concerning his 



TRISTAM BURGES. 365 

own duty, which he has sworn faithfully to perform ; and then that 
he has the further power to compel that officer to act contrary to 
that opinion, thus formed, under the powers of the Constitution, and 
under the solemnities of his oath. This would be the constitutional 
establishment of a tyranny, more intolerable than ever was estab- 
lished, by the most lawless despotism. It could never have been 
the purpose of any part of the Constitution to do such a deed of 
sheer abomination. For what intention, then, were the Secretaries 
made the counsellors of the President, by placing upon tlfem the 
duty of giving to him their opinions in writing concerning their own 
duties? Why are they made his advisers? Not that he may 
counteract, but that he may conform his actions to the wisdom of 
his constitutional advisers. How, then, can this power of the Pre- 
sident, to require the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury 
concerning his duty on this question of removing the public money, 
give to him any power to control that Secretary in the perform- 
ance of that duty ? 

Will the power of dismissing him from office give this control 
over his opinions ? It should be remembered that the power of the 
President is to require of the Secretary his own opinion concerning 
his own duty. Should the fear of dismissal, or the hope of being 
retained in office, induce him to give the opinion of the President, 
and not his own opinion, the requisition of the Constitution is defeat- 
ed ; because it was the Secretary's opinion, and that alone, which the 
President could require, or the Secretary give. If, therefore, any 
influence be brought to bear on the Secretary, so as to vary, in the 
least degree, the opinion which he may give, from the opinion, which 
without that influence, he would have given ; the Constitution has 
been perverted, and the President, by using this influence, has defeat- 
ed his own purpose, and obtained a false, feigned, and counterfeited, 
in place of a true and genuine opinion of the Secretary. He was 
entitled to the true ; he had no right to require the false. He might 
be counselled by the true ; but if he act, in pursuance of the false 
opinion, he wilfully, and knowingly, perverts his constitutional pow- 
er. Can the President, then, by any use of the dismissing power, 
influence any honest man to give him such a false and counterfeit 
as the giver and receiver shall both believe, to be a true and genu- 
ine opinion ? If not, though he may pervert his power, he cannot ob- 
tain the opinion which alone he is entitled to require, the genuine 



366 SPEECHES 1 

opinion of his Secretary, and not the mere echo of his own. In 
what instance has power controlled the opinion of honest men ? The 
terrors of the stake, and the faggot, have made many hypocrites, 
but never a sincere convert. John Calvin and Alexander Servetus 
were bred up at the same school, and intimate friends from their 
boyhood. They both became very religious men. Calvin, perhaps 
the more ambitious of the two, established a creed, and was finally 
the founder of a numerous sect. Servetus, without any such am- 
bition,«-eceived the scriptures, as expounded by Luther, for the great 
rule of his faith. Calvin established himself at Geneva ; and there 
wielded the secular arm to weed out the heresies of Luther. Ser- 
vetus, I believe a physician, when travelling into Italy, passed 
through that little jurisdiction, and there, doubtless, expected to re- 
ceive from the republic all the hospitalities due to a stranger, and 
from his old school-fellow, all the courtesies of their long cherished 
friendship. In place of civilities, and that kindness, he was by the 
magistrates arrested ; and, on the accusation of his friend, tried and 
condemned as a heretic. The night before the day appointed for 
his execution, Calvin visited him in his prison. He was chained and 
fettered, and lay, quietly sleeping, on the stone floor of the dungeon. 
Calvin held the lamp to his face, and doubtless, animated by the re- 
collection of their youthful intimacy, called out to him, " Servetus, 
Servetus, awake. I would save you from the death which you are 
doomed to suffer." Servetus awoke. Calvin repeated his words. 
" Would you ? I believed," said the confiding man, "that you would. 
How could you remember all our former friendship, and leave me 
to die a death so bitterly cruel ?" " Alexander, my friend," he said, 
and all the man spoke in his voice, " I will save you." But, alas, 
for our frailty ! the sectarian compelled him to add : "Alexander, 
my dear friend, you must change your opinions ; you must receive 
my creed." " John, my dear John," exclaimed the chained and fet- 
tered Servetus, raising himself up, and sitting on his bed of stone, 
" tell me, can I not live, unless I do this ?" The great propagandist 
could not endure the inquisition of his eye. He turned his face to 
the iron door ; and no was all he could utter ; but that no was the 
negative of an inquisitor. Servetus rose slowly to his feet ; Cal- 
vin turned towards him ; their eyes met. " John," said he, his face 
glowing with almost supernatural ardor, " John," be exclaimed, 
while the glories of the martyr seemed to blaze in a halo around 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



367 



him, "John, we were friends from the cradle. Together we learned 
the first rudiments of science and letters. We read together, 
and delighted to read and study the glowing beauties of the classics. 
Together we read and studied the more beautiful, the more glorious, 
the more pure and divine, pages of revelation. From that fountain 
of inspiration you have drawn your opinions; and from the same 
source I have drawn mine. I have, again and again, lifted up my 
soul to God, and implored the aid of his divine spirit, and I do be- 
lieve that spirit directed me in the formation of every article of my 
faith. John, I cannot do despite to my own conscience ; I cannot 
insult the majesty of the Almighty. I can die ; but I cannot change 
my opinions. You can take my life, I cannot receive your creed." 
" Then die !" was the bitter response. 

The next day Servetus was brought to the stake, and suffered as 
a martyr to the truth, in defence of his own integrity ; and gave a 
lasting example, that if power can control all other things human, it 
cannot control human opinion. 

Was Andrew Jackson more successful in his attempt to control 
the honest opinion of William J. Duane ? Were not the terrors of 
punishment set before his face, if he dared to have an opinion of his 
own, differing from that of the President ? Were not the hopes of 
reward held out to allure him ? " Stand by me, and I will stand by 
you ! Be my friend in this, and I will be your friend in all things !" 
was the style of executive blandishments. Nay, Sir, to this man 
was tendered the mighty meed of the largest honors within Execu- 
tive power to bestow. Servetus could die, but he could not change 
his opinion : Duane could give up the highest honors, but he could 
not give up his honest opinion. He could endure Executive wrath, 
dismissal, and malediction, but could not encounter the rebuke of his 
own conscience. 

By the exercise of the dismissing power, then, the President gets 
the control of the Secretary of the Treasury, and, therefore, can 
have no control of that Department by such exercise. The opin- 
ions of Servetus remained unchanged by the fire of his persecutor ; 
and the opinion of Duane is unchanged by the dismissing power of 
the President, and now stands, just as he left it, on the record of the 
Treasury. By the exercise of the dismissing power, then, it clear- 
ly follows that the President cannot obtain any execution of the laws 
whatever, either faithful or unfaithful. 



368 



SPEECHES OF 



Sir, when the people are unmindful of the great purposes for 
which their fathers established this Government ; when they per- 
vert the laws and the Constitution, and, by their subserviency to 
power, granted solely for their own benefit, change their political 
wealth, delivered into their hands in trust, to enrich themselves, 
their children, and the latest posterity ; then they convert this glo- 
rious bestowment into a mere heritage for those men whom they 
have appointed as their own agents, their public servants, to exe- 
cute those laws ; and unmindful of that rich patrimony of laws and 
liberty ; unmindful of their own, and of the rights and freedom of 
posterity, devote themselves and their children to the power, the 
riches, and the glory of those rulers; then, indeed, will the land 
mourn ; the iron dominion of power will settle down on every re- 
gion of our once prosperous country ; the breath of the tyrant shall 
then wither every thing that ever nourished ; and, consuming every 
vital principle of our free institutions, the lights of liberty, one after 
another, will go out, and at last leave us to the cheerful darkness of 
despotism. 

The present rulers in our country seem to have believed that this 
era of subserviency had begun. The chieftain, with his executive 
host, grasped at the whole power ; and he has evinced that, in his 
opinion, the day has come when the people, infatuated by the glare 
of his glory, and enchanted by his display of patriotic pretensions, 
would sanction his usurpation, and aid him in parcelling out this 
power as a lasting inheritance, for himself, his successor, and their 
devoted followers. 

The people, when once they confide, are reluctant to find them- 
selves deceived. When they do make this discovery, they will ex- 
amine the causes which have produced their deception ; and be as- 
sured, Sir, that every pretension to patriotism, which was but a dis- 
guised arrogance of power, will be disclosed, and set before the pub- 
lic eye, in such manner as it is my purpose now to disclose some of 
those pretensions, by looking into the history of Executive patronage 
and Executive power, under the present administration. 

If we would learn the progress of Executive power, we must look 
back to the time when Executive patronage was transplanted from 
constitutional grounds to a more luxuriant soil. Originally a salu- 
tary plant, because it was of a limited growth, it has, by this remov- 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



369 



al, and by a lavish supply of nourishment, become a huge tree, 
shooting out limbs over all the land : and birds of every note and 
every feather now find nourishment and shelter among its branches. 

When, in 1829, this administration went into power, it was soon 
discovered, there were more candidates for appointment, than offices 
for distribution. 

This might have been expected ; in the first place, because so 
much had been promised. Sir, the whole country had, for more 
than four years, been literally "the land of promise." 

In the next place, because it was believed that so much was in 
Executive power to bestow. It was a part of partisan faith, and had 
been zealously inculcated on partisan credulity, that the new Presi- 
dent could feed his followers with more fishes than the ocean, more 
loaves than the land, could produce. 

The Executive, it must be admitted, did do, for these good men, 
all which power, less than miraculous, could have done for any men. 
Every office, not already in the hands of partisans, was literally 
cleared out for their accommodation, and bestowed upon them. — 
When all these were filled, and many, quite as worthy of being fed 
and clothed, still were standing, on the outside of the Treasury, Ex- 
ecutive invention was tasked to the utmost to create new offices. 
Clerkships were then changed into bureaus, with each a chief at its 
head ; on the principle, no doubt, that every new head, no matter 
what the animal might be, must be furnished with all other mem- 
bers, from the superior to the inferior extremity. In addition to this, 
old departments were, like old packets, repaired, cut up, and filled 
with new berths, so as to furnish the greatest amount of accommo- 
dation to the greatest possible number of passengers. 

The post-office establishment, in this way, furnished a world of 
accommodation for these politically meritorious men. Not to men- 
tion the new clerks employed, or the constant call for help, and extra 
labor in that quarter ; nor the very desirable employment, supplied 
by moving the mail ten thousand additional miles per diem ; or the 
new regulation of paying less by contract, and more by extra allow- 
ance ; or the accommodating facilities of the new bureau for bor- 
rowing ; without any reference to any of these, it is seen that the 
new post-offices alone, in addition to the old eight thousand, have 
provided places for two thousand one hundred and twenty-three of 
these very valuable men. 



370 SPEECHES OF 

The Treasury Department has been very helpful, in a different 
way ; by calling on more men, to do the same service. The col- 
lection of the revenue, it is believed, furnishes, at this time, by 
distributing the labor to ten times the number of men, quite tenfold 
more employment, for every dollar collected, than was furnished by 
it, in the time of Jefferson. Sir, notwithstanding the mantle of 
patronage had been thus extended, until, like charity, it was the 
covering of multitudes ; yet very many equally distinguished, both 
by moral and political merit, were outstanding, and still in want of 
permanent, and substantial provision. Although this condition of 
aspirants to office must have been foreseen, yet could it not be alto- 
gether obviated. It was foreseen, because it was known, that it 
must follow, from a rule very early adopted by this administration. 
This rule was contrived to provide for all men, located on the fron- 
tiers of all parties ; all those who hope for more from political than 
from moral merit ; and all who make no question about the service, 
which they are to perform, if the reward be made satisfactory to 
them. By this rule, the same pay, rations, and bounty were pro- 
mised to deserters, which had been given to original household 
troops. In this great party emergency, the eyes of the chieftain, 
and of his immediate associates, were turned to the money power of 
the nation, for relief. The Bank of the United States, it was 
believed by them, embodied that power, in a form, of all, the most 
efficient. Could this be obtained, and united to the political power, 
already in the hands of the President, it would give him patronage 
enough to provide for all his friends ; and power enough to consume 
all his enemies. 

A scheme of safety, for the political management of public 
money, had been commenced in the State of New- York. This 
scheme was brought on here, from that State ; and laid before the 
President, in the spring of 1829, by that officer of the cabinet, who, 
the last of those counsellors, took his seat in that divan. 

In pursuance of that scheme, and under the advisement of men, 
thought to be great masters in such movements, the attempt was, 
early in the summer of 1829, made upon the Bank. This attempt 
failed of success ; and both the attempt and the failure, were fully 
brought into public notice, by the Bank examination, made, the 
year before last, by Congress. This attempt and failure, thus dis- 
closed, fully explain to the world, the immitigable and consuming 



TRISTAM BURGES. 371 

hostility of the President against the Bank. Sir, you will permit 
me to read a very short statement of this transaction. 

Since the establishment of the institution it has devoted itself 
anxiously and exclusively to the purposes of its creation, the resto- 
ration of the currency, the maintenance of the general credit, and 
the accommodation of the internal and foreign trade of the country. 
That it has not failed in these objects, that it has indeed realized 
more than the anticipations of the most sanguine, is attested by all 
parts of the community. It was in the midst of this career of inof- 
fensive usefulness, when, soon after the accession to power of the 
present Executive, the purpose was distinctly revealed that other 
duties than those to the country were required — and that it was 
necessary for the Bank, in administering its affairs, to consult the 
political views of those who had now obtained the ascendancy in 
the Executive. It is understood that soon after that event, a meet- 
ing was held in Washington of the principal chiefs, to consider the 
means of perpetuating their new authority, and the possession of 
the Bank was among the most prominent objects of the parties as- 
sembled. The first open manifestation of this purpose was in June, 
1829, when a concerted effort was made by the Executive officers 
to interfere in the election of the Board of Directors at Portsmouth. 
At the head of this attempt was Levi Woodbury, now a member of 
the present Cabinet at Washington, who did not hesitate to avow in 
a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, which, though marked 
" confidential," was subsequently ordered to be published by the com- 
mittee of investigation, in 1832, that he wished the interference of 
the Government to remove the President of the Branch at Ports- 
mouth, of whom he says : 

" The new President, Jeremiah Mason, is a particular friend of 
Mr. Webster, and his political character is doubtless well known to 
you ;" and he requests the Secretary of the Treasury "to commu- 
nicate with some of the Directors of the Mother Bank in favor of 
such a change." 

This letter of Mr. Woodbury was transmitted to the Bank by 
the Secretary of the Treasury, who stated that " from some expres- 
sions in his letter, it may be inferred that it is partly founded on a 
supposed application of the influence of the Bank, with a view to 
political effect" — in consequence of which, he deemed it his duty to 
present it to the Bank, " with the views of the administration in rela- 



372 SPEECHES OF 

tion to it." At the same time, Mr. Isaac Hill, acting as the Comp- 
troller of the Treasury, until rejected by the Senate, and now a 
Senator of the United States, sent a memorial from the members of 
his political party in the Legislature of New-Hampshire, requesting 
the removal of Mr. Mason. In another communication presented 
to the Bank, he gave it as his opinion, that no measure, short of 
Mr. Mason's removal, would tend " to reconcile the people of New 
Hampshire to the Bank ;" and that the "friends of General Jack- 
son, in New-Hampshire, have had but too much reason to complain 
of the management of the Branch at Portsmouth." Finally, the 
Secretary of War ordered the transfer .of the pension fund from 
the Branch Bank at Portsmouth to another Bank in Concord — an 
act so obviously in violation of the laws, that it was resisted by the 
Bank, and then retracted by the Secretary. 

It became then manifest to the Bank, that there was a combin- 
ed effort to render the institution subservient to political purposes, 
and that it was necessary to come to some immediate and distinct 
understanding of its rights and duties- This was done in the cor- 
respondence of the President of the Bank with the Secretary of the 
Treasury, of which the following passages will indicate the general 
purport : 

" Presuming that we have rightly apprehended your views, and 
fearful that the silence of the Bank might be hereafter misconstrued 
into an acquiescence in them, I deem it my duty to state to you, in 
a manner perfectly respectful to your official and personal charac- 
ter, yet so clear as to leave no possibility of misconception, that the 
Board of Directors of the Bank of the United States, and the Boards 
of Directors of the Branches of the Bank of the United States, 
acknowledge not the slightest responsibility of any description what- 
soever to the Secretary of the Treasury, touching the political con- 
duct of their officers, that being a subject on which they never 
consult, and never desire to know the views of any administration." 

Again : — " Accordingly the act of Congress simply declares, 
" that, for the management of the affairs of the said corporation, 
there shall be twenty-five directors.' When these are chosen, the 
whole administration of the Bank is committed to their exclusive 
care. Their responsibility for the management of it is to Congress, 
and to Congress alone ; but no Executive officer of the Govern- 
ment, from the President of the United States downwards, has the 



TRISTAM BURGE S. 373 

slightest authority to interfere in it ; and there can be no more 
warrant for suggesting the views of the administration to the Bank 
of the United States than the Supreme Court of the United States." 
Finally : — " For the Bank, which has specific duties to per- 
form, and which belongs to the country, and not to any party, there 
is but one course of honor or of safety. Whenever its duties come 
in conflict with the spirit of party, it should not compromise with it, 
nor capitulate to it, but resist it — resist it openly and fearlessly. In 
this its interest concurs with its duty ; for it will be found at last, 
such is the good sense of the country, that the best mode of satisfy- 
ing all parties is to disregard them all. 

These extracts reveal the whole secret of the hostility to tbe 
Bank of those, who, finding it impossible to bend it to their purposes, 
have resolved to break it." 

Sir, what is seen in this extract ? It demonstrates that the at- 
tempt was made to unite the Bank with the Executive ; and, by 
that union, to give to the President both the money power and the 
political power of the nation. It exhibits another fact, also, no less 
honorable to that institution, than it was disgraceful to the Execu- 
tive ; it demonstrates that the president and directors of the Bank, 
I were above the reach of presidential influence, and not to be cor- 
( rupted by the menaces or blandishments of Executive power. 

Here is the origin of that tremendous evil now spreading ruin 
i and wretchedness over the country. It is not found in any delin- 
quency of the Bank ; but in the rejection of the New- York scheme, 
I for the safe management of public money, which it was intended 
* should have been brought into operation in that Bank and its 
branches, and which would have been effected, had not the presi- 
dent and directors thus promptly rejected the very incipiency of 
that measure. 

After this disappointment suffered by the Executive, the ulterior 
provisions of that scheme of operations were commenced ; and have 
been so far carried out, that this Bank of the people, is now left in 
the control of the people ; but the money of the people is taken from 
their Bank and placed in the control of the Executive. 

During every administration of the Federal Government, up to 
March 3d, 1829, it had been the policy of both rulers and people, 
to keep up an impassable wall of separation, between the political 
power, and the money power of the nation. The present Chief 



374 



SPEECHES OF 



Magistrate has determined, cost what it may in ruin and sutferiwvg 
to the people, that he will demolish this wall, and unite them both 
in his own person. This he will do, that he may thereby appoint, 
should he choose to appoint, his own successor. Let not those who 
love the free institutions of our country, deem this an object, either 
too inconsiderable, or too abhorrent, to be purchased at the cost of 
so much which good and wise men hold precious and sacred in our 
country. It is, and ever has been, the first and last aspiration of 
power, to perpetuate its own existence, by committing its high 
prerogatives to some favorite, who will, in like manner, propagate, 
and, if possible, perpetuate that power. Never yet has any usurper 
existed, who, when he had achieved the subjugation of a whole 
people, has not labored, with a most cruel diligence, to place the 
care of their chains, in the hands of such a successor as might keep 
them riveted, and locked securely on their limbs. This money 
power of the nation, thus usurped by the President, will not only 
enable him to appoint his own successor, but he may transfer the 
same power to him, so that he, should he, or should he not, wish to 
serve his dear country, during life, may appoint his successor. Is 
it wonderful that men of the Kinderhook school so labor, when they 
so hope ? Let them hope ; but they will permit me to say to them, 
be not too sanguine, too lofty and undoubting in your hope. The 
heir apparent, perhaps it may be the heir presumptive, does not 
hold a barren, an unlineal sceptre. It is said there is a friend more 
german than a brother ; certainly there may be, even in our times, 
a tie more binding and influential than political brotherhood. 

This gigantic project of the President, to get the control of the 
public money, was first intimated to the nation in his Congressional 
message of December, 1829. The political banking system of 
New- York had been established, the winter before, under the ad- 
ministration of Governor Van Buren. The scheme of a Govern- 
ment Bank, recommended to Congress by that message, would, had 
it been fully unfolded, have been found to be a mere fac simile of 
the New-York scheme. The present arrangement of depository 
State Banks is another copy of that original. They all spring, in 
full size and full life, like Milton's allegory of sin, from one head. 
Not more in their paternity than in their form, do they resemble 
that primitive mischief; which, as we are told, 



TRI8TAM B U R G E S. 375 

<l Seemed woman to the waist, and fair ; 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold, 
Voluminous and vast." 

To recommend this new scheme of a Government Bank, estab- 
lished on the credit and revenue of the Government, as if the re- 
venue and credit did not belong to the nation ; the President, in 
that message, made a direct and most unfounded assault on the 
United States Bank. He says, " the constitutionality of that insti- 
tution is well questioned, by many of the people." He did this 
after Mr. Madison, originally questioning the constitutionality of a 
Bank, had decided that the question was settled, by popular usage ; 
each of the two great parties, the federal and the republican party, 
having supported a Bank ; by Congressional usage, for a Congress 
of each of those parties had voted for a Bank ; and, above all, by 
Judicial usage, because the Supreme Court had adjudicated, that a 
bank was constitutional. Notwithstanding this opinion of Mr. 
Madison, the President did then, to recommend his scheme of a 
Treasury Bank, question, and declare that many of the people well 
questioned, the constitutionality of the present Bank, incorporated, 
as it was, under a charter approved by James Madison. 

To induce a belief that the money of the nation was unsafe in 
that Bank, he further denounced its currency as unsound. What 
is a sound currency ? Why, Sir, such a currency as, if it be gold 
and silver, is equal in weight and fineness to the standard ; but, if 
it be paper, such a currency as may, at all times, be exchanged, 
dollar for dollar, for gold and silver, at the option of the holder. 
What was, and is, the fact 1 When did a man, in the United States, 
present an United States Bank note, at the counter of the Bank, or 
any one of its branches, where it was payable, and payment was 
refused either in gold or silver ? Not one. The accusation was 
entirely gratuitous ; and not supported by a single fact. It was 
made to alarm the people for the safety of the revenue, whether 
daily coming into the Bank, or that already deposited there. They 
were told that the notes of that Bank, in which the Government 
must receive from that Bank, the public money deposited in its 
keeping, were unsound, were not equal to gold and silver ; and they 
were told this, to induce the nation to distrust the Bank ; and finally 
be prepared to justify that removal which was, even then, meditated, 
and determined to be effected, either legally or otherwise, if it must 



376 S P E E C H E S O F 

otherwise be done. The payment of the revenue, the public taxes, 
is made by all the people ; and if made equally, all are satisfied. 
If unequal, all will be dissatisfied. These taxes are payable in the 
notes of the United States Bank. The President, in that message, 
denounced these notes as not uniform in their value. What was 
the effect of this denunciation ? and what, then, must have been the 
purpose of making it 1 If it had any effect, and was made for any 
purpose, it must have been to induce a belief, that one part of the 
people must pay more tax than another ; because they paid in a 
currency of not a uniform value ; that is, of a value, at one time y 
and in one place, different from its value, at another time, and in 
another place. This was done, not only to induce a removal of the 
public money from the Bank ; but to induce such an opposition to 
this Bank among the people, as might compel Congress to repeal 
the law, by which the notes of this Bank are receivable for all 
sums due to the United States. 

There might be some ground to doubt whether these were the 
Executive purposes, in making this attack on the Bank, had no 
other facts, of the same kind, followed these demonstrations. Such 
did follow. In December, 1830, the same allegations, in the Presi- 
dential Message, were reiterated. One other demonstration was 
made. Notwithstanding the charter had nearly six years to run, 
the attention of Congress was called to a consideration of the ques- 
tion of its renewal. It was known to the President, that Congress 
could not move this question, until the Bank corporation should 
petition them for a renewal of their charter. The suggestion was, 
therefore, made, to induce the Bank to offer such a petition to Con- 
gress. Was that inducement offered, because the President intend- 
ed to approve any renewed charter which any Congress might 
enact ? Not one can believe it. Why, then, was the question 
stirred 1 Why was the inducement offered to the Bank ? Doubt- 
less that the President might do, at the earliest possible time, what 
he did do, so soon as the opportunity was afforded, by presenting 
the renewed charter for his approval, send it back to Congress un- 
der his veto. In that veto, he might do what he could not do in 
any other message. Pie might give that stab to the vitals of the 
Bank which would bring it so low in the healthy estimation of the 
people, as to induce an immediate removal of the public money ; 
and require, either the establishment of his Treasury Bank, or such 



T R 1 S T A I\I 13 U H G E S. 377 

fin arrangement of the State Banks as depositories, as would give 
to him an equal control of the public money. With this in his 
hands, in the spring of 1831, he might have finished his political 
campaign ; by placing his favorite in his seat, at the close of his 
first Executive term ; without soliciting another nomination, or en- 
countering the exigencies of another contested election. 

This refuge failed him, and he was compelled to call the atten- 
tion of the Legislature to this question again ; and, in his Message 
of December, 1831, addressed to the twenty-second Congress, all 
his former allegations were repeated, but in a milder strain. To 
secure a confidence in his apparent desire to settle this great ques- 
tion, and relieve the popular anxiety, he, in that message, seemed 
entirely to relinquish his constitutional scruples ; and, as he most 
courteously expressed himself, " he referred the whole subject to 
the good sense of an enlightened people, and their representatives 
in Congress." What more could he say? Men could not expect 
that he would send to Congress his approval of the renewed charter 
before it had been enacted by the Legislature. This declaration 
was received, as doubtless it was intended that it should be received. 
It was believed ; and the Bank, induced by this belief, and urged 
by so many reiterations of the necessity of settling the question, did, 
in an evil hour of confidence, and with a reliance on good faith, 
place its interests and character in the hands of the Executive. A 
petition for a renewal of the charter was presented to Congress. 
That Congress, friendly to the administration Ly a lange majority, did, 
after making several important amendments in it, renew that char- 
ter, by considerallj majorities in both Houses of Congress. It was 
sent to the President for his approval. 

Tiiis charter, passed by such a Congress, after such repeated 
recommendations, and under his assurance, made in his very last 
Message, that " he left the question of re-chartering this institution, 
entirely, to the good sense of an enlightened people and their repre- 
sentatives," was disapproved by him, and sent back to Congress 
under his veto. This was contained in a Message, which demon- 
strated to both Houses, to the nation, to the world, and will tell pos- 
terity, that men, placed in the most exalted stations, may be coun- 
selled, influenced, and controlled, by persons without wisdom, with- 
out patriotism, I do not say without integrity ; and thereby surfer 
themselves to speak, to the high constituted authorities of their 



378 SPEECHES OF 

country, in the language, and to utter, as their own, the opinions 
and sentiments of men meriting no better title than demagogues. 

This Veto Message came to both Houses, and went out to the 
world, under the sign-manual of the President ; but, as no person, 
either friend or adversary, has ever charged the writing of it upon 
him, I will only say, that it is a portion of that system of measures, 
which he has been advised to pursue, to destroy that institution 
which sustains not only the whole currency, but so much of the 
interest of the nation, and so much of the interest of so many of the 
people ; and thereby to draw into his own hands not only that pecu- 
niary power, which a control of the revenue will give, but also that 
much greater money power, which the people had reserved to them- 
selves, and heretofore used in their own State Banks, for the bene- 
fit of their own labor, exercised for their individual emolument. 
This is manifest, from his declaration, that he would have given to 
them a plan of a Bank, superior to all objections. What would it 
have been ? Doubtless the great Treasury scheme, intimated in 
the Message of 1829, founded on the revenue and credit of the 
Government ; with officers of the Treasury to sell a few bills of 
exchange. Twenty-five millions of revenue, and a like amount of 
stocks, issued on the credit of the nation, would have formed a Bank, 
annexed to the Treasury, and under the control of the President, as 
the head of that department, sufficiently large to have enabled him 
to grasp, and wield, the whole money power of the country. Such 
a Bank might be separated into one hundred branches, extending 
their deleterious shade over the whole surface of our country. De- 
leterious, Sir, for every president, director, clerk, and cashier, in 
every one of these Banks, would be a mere clerk in that Treasury 
Department of which the President has enacted himself the head. 
What a magnificent scheme ! What droves of the mere carriers of 
political power might be stabled here, and fed at the public grana- 
ry ! Why, Sir, at the mere mention of such feed, I can almost see 
them thrusting their long faces through the window of our hall, and 
braying their delight, and their devotion to him who first invented 
this glorious forage house of the Treasury. It was thought, by the 
advocates of a Treasury — a Government Bank, that the United 
States Bank, the People's Bank, would have fallen under the weight 
of the Presidential veto. Yes, Sir, I say the People's Bank. 
Pray, Sir, whose is it, if it be not the people's ? It is but a part, 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



379 



indeed a small part, of the people's great reserved interests. For 
the moneyed interest of the people is, all of it$ inconsiderable, when 
compared with their mercantile interest ; their navigating interest ; 
their fishery interest ; their manufacturing and mechanic interest ; 
and, above all, with their great landed agricultural interest. Com- 
pared with all these immense interests of the people, their whole 
moneyed interest is inconsiderable in value ; but their United States 
Bank is a part only of that moneyed interest ; for their State Banks 
are, in capital, four times the amount of their United States institu- 
tion. Indeed this, their moneyed interest, has, in itself, and alone, 
no value ; and would be utterly worthless, any otherwise, than as 
a great machine, by which all other interests are moved and made 
productive. In this machine, their United States Bank is useful 
above its value ; because it is the great balance wheel, regulating 
the currency and the immense exchanges, made by that currency ; 
and doing this both in places nearest to, or the most distant from, 
each other, over the whole country. Sir, it is the magnitude, great 
as it may be, of this wheel, which alone enables those, who operate 
its movements, to do the work for which the people have built and 
put it in motion. Notwithstanding this fact is so well known to 
every man skilled in such operations ; yet the miserable political 
engineers of these times, would tear out and remove this great 
balance wheel ; and supply its place, by no one can tell what 
wretched turnspit machinery, hitherto used in the operations of their 
vile political establishment. Sir, this Bank, great as it may be, is 
the People's Bank. If it be, as some honest, but mistaken, men 
believe it, a money monopoly ; and as all the minions of party, the 
foes of the people, have slanderously denounced it to be — agreed, if 
they will ; let it be so. The people have made it ; and it is their 
own monopoly. Let their servants know this. Seven millions of 
the stocks are owned by the whole people, collectively ; and these 
stocks give to them, to the nation, two dividends a year, amounting 
to four hundred and twenty thousand dollars per annum. These 
stocks and dividends would, long ago, have been lost to the people, 
if their ruthless adversaries could have succeeded in destroying their 
Bank. 

Besides, Sir, many of the people have placed all their earthly 
treasure in this Bank. Literary and religious societies have placed 
their funds here. Widows have garnered up, in this institution, the 



380 



SPEECHES O F 



little residue, left by endeared friends to lighten the gloom of then 
solitude, and cheer the sadness of their desolation. Orphans look 
hither, for the means of education and support, from what was lefl 
here for them by those who have done with the cares and perils of 
time. Aged men, who have toiled through all the labor of life, 
have placed in this institution what they could save from the con- 
suming touch of adversity, that it may furnish, for them, and for 
those dependent on them, food, and raiment, and shelter. Twenty 
millions of dollars, in the stocks of this Bank, are owned by many 
thousands of such individuals of our nation ; and this unnatural war 
against this Bank, so emphatically the Bank of the people, is a war 
against property; against literature and learning ; the religion and 
morals ; the old age and infirmity ; the orphanage and widowhood 
of our common country. Aye, Sir, and a war, declared, and carried 
on, by that Executive Government, which was established by the 
people ; yes, Sir, and established by them, not to prey upon any 
part or any interest of the community, but for the general welfare 
of all. Nay, Sir, more cruel than all this, we shall find that Exe- 
cutive war waged, as it is, against those owners of shares, in this 
institution, who have no voice in our councils, no arm in our land, 
to defend their interests. In other countries, where the sword of 
war widows many a wife, makes many a mother childless ; where 
the storm of revolution, so frequently, sweeps over the earth ; and 
leaves so many of its inhabitants without shelter, and without food ; 
people, there, hearing of our country and its institutions, have, 
very many of them, gathered up the little fragments of their former 
abundance, sent them to the United States ; and, altogether, uniting 
their means with two or three wealthy houses, they have purchased 
eight millions in the shares of this Bank. 

Sir, they were continually " hearing of wars and rumors of 
wars," in their own countries ; but while " their hearts were failing 
them for fear of what was coming upon the earth ;" these foreign- 
ers, these strangers, a name always heretofore sacred among even 
hordes of savages ; these strangers, men, women, children, looked 
here for the safety of that treasure which the good faith of our 
fathers had encouraged them to leave in our hands. Did these 
confiding people apprehend, or suspect, or even imagine, that this 
institution could be called to suffer reproach and malediction and 
outrageous injury in this country, because it had given shelter to 



TRISTAM BURGES. 381 

them in their utmost need ? Oh no, Sir ; never, never, could they, 
in their most gloomy night of disaster, once dream, that a war, 
waged by the Government against the people, was here consuming 
their last earthly hope. Never, Sir, never until now, was any 
institution of the people so assailed ; by the Executive ; by Con- 
gress ; by its own officers ; by the Treasury. The whole weight 
and array of political war have been urged and driven on against 
this institution ; but so deeply was it entrenched in the affections of 
the people ; and so impregnable were the defences raised around it, 
by its own integrity ; that all this weight and array of political war 
have not carried it down. Even the Presidential veto failed to 
overthrow this depository of the toil-earned substance of the people. 
Sir, notwithstanding the hopes and the perseverance of its adversa- 
ries, those minions of power ; this institution has not only kept in 
safety — undoubted safety — now unquestioned safety, the many 
talents committed to its trust ; but has so occupied, and improved 
them, that the owners ; this nation, many people of this nation, and 
many people of other nations, will, unless plundered by lawless 
power ; they will, when this stewardship shall expire, receive their 
own again. 

Sir, the next step taken to overthrow this institution ; and to effect, 
or to justify a removal of the public money from its custody ; was 
to announce that this money of the people, was unsafe in their own 
keeping, in their own Bank. A treasury agent was sent to exam- 
ine that question. He received every aid from the officers of the 
Bank ; and, after the most diligent examination, he reported to the 
Treasury that the public money was safe in the public Bank. This 
seemed to widen the distance between this money, and the control of 
the Executive. Another effort must be made. The aid of Con- 
gress was invoked ; and hope seemed again to be revived. The 
House of Representatives appointed a committee. The question 
was examined, most ardently and diligently. Finally, this House, 
friendly, by a great majority, to the administration, resolved, by an 
overwhelming majority, that the money of the people was safe in 
the Bank of the people. The gulf, between the money and the 
Executive, did at first appear to have become impassable. Patron- 
age, without this treasure, was exhausted. Not one office remained 
to bestow — none would resign — none could be persuaded to die. 
Thousands were barefooted — and waiting for the shoes of men who 



382 



SPEECHES OF 



were as likely to live as they themselves were. The recrunn.- 
service, it was thought, must cease ; desertion would probably fol- 
low ; and the succession be inevitably lost ; unless patronage could 
be extended, by obtaining the control of the public money. With 
those funds, likely this year, as it was said, to be great, a system of 
deposite, in the State Banks, might be formed ; and so far finished, 
before the next Presidential election, as would give abundance of 
promise, and some payment to old and new partisans. How could 
this be effected, was the anxious question. The vineyard of Naboth 
was flourishing, and would feed them all ; but then it was still Na- 
both's vineyard. Hitherto Congress had been invoked for aid in 
the removal of the public money ; but hitherto no cause, justifying 
that removal, had been suggested, either to the Treasury or to 
Congress, other than the unsafety of that money, in the National 
Bank. 

When, at the last session, the House passed their Resolution of 
safety, it was well known to them, that the Bank charter would 
expire on the 3d of March, 1836, and, therefore, that before Con- 
gress would meet again, that charter would, on the first day of 
October, 1833, have but two years, five months, and three days to 
run. Was this fact suggested to the House, by the President, who 
was so anxious for the event, as a cause justifying that removal ? 
It was then known, that if the Secretary of the Treasury should, 
because the charter would end within two years and a half, order 
and direct that no more money should be deposited in the Bank ; 
and that the Treasurer should remove from its vaults the whole 
nine millions, eight hundred and sixty-eight thousand, four huudred 
and thirty-five dollars, and fifty -eight cents, which would then be 
there on deposite ; it was well known, Sir, that the Bank must, to 
pay this nearly ten millions of money, withdraw its discounts, call 
on its customers to repay this money, which had been loaned to 
them ; and thus aid the Bank in the repayment of it. Was it then 
suggested, by the Secretary of the Treasury, or by the President, 
that, if the Bank, when called upon for the deposites, should adopt 
this course, it would be a justifying cause of that order of removal 
of which it was the necessary effect ? It was then well known, that 
the Bank Directors did believe their charter, like those of all other 
Banks, authorized them to appoint committees of discount, and ex- 
change ; that it did not require a whole board to discount a note. 



TRISTAM BURGES. 383 

or purchase a bill, or do any other mere Executive act ; and that 
these committees were appointed by the president of the Bank. Did 
the President of the United States then so much as intimate to Con- 
gress, that these acts were violations of the charter, and causes of 
removal ? It was known to the Government Directors, so early as 
the 8th of January, 1833, at the then board meeting of the Bank, 
that none of those Directors were appointed on important commit- 
tees. This, it is presumed, they made known to the President in 
their correspondence with him ; for a part only of that correspon- 
dence is published. Did the President represent this to Congress, 
as a cause, if it ever were a cause, for the removal of the public 
money ? It was well known to Congress, at that time, that the 
Directors had published documents, and expended money to defend 
the institution against this Executive war ; it was well known that 
loans had been made, as well to printers, as to other men in busi- 
ness ; it was well known that the Bank did, from 1830 to 1832, 
extend its loans to meet the wants of the people : for the Bank 
committee had very lately seen and examined all these things ; and 
yet, the President of the United States did not offer one of them to 
Congress as a cause for removal of the deposites. 

In fact, nearly every reason set down by the Secretary of the 
Treasury as his reasons for this removal, was known to Congress ; 
to the President ; and was known to the Treasury Department ; 
when, on the 2d day of March, 1833, this House resolved that the 
money of the people was safe in the Bank of the people. Up to 
that time, it had not been suggested, by the Treasury Department, 
to Congress, that the head of that Department, whether the Secre- 
tary or the President of the United States, could take the money 
from the Treasurer without appropriation, for any purpose what- 
ever, and use it to aid State Banks, enfeebled by adversity, or insol- 
vent from overtrading. Neither had it been intimated, by the 
President, that he claimed the right, to place Government Directors 
in the Bank, who might be of such a character as would induce 
them to consent to transmit to him, the daily transactions of the 
Bank ; and that too without letting it be known to the other Direc- 
tors that they were doing these very unwarrantable deeds. The 
Treasury Department did not claim that power till after the 23d of 
September. We know Mr. Duane disclaimed it. It must have 
been known to the President of the United States, that if a record 



384 SPEECHES OF 

of every day's work of the Bank had been read at night to him, it 
would have given to him no cause for removal of the deposites. It 
so happened (and who can say why?) that those gentlemen selected 
for Government Directors, regarded their appointment as a distin- 
guished honor, a great State office, conferred on them ; and though, 
doubtless, men of much capacity, yet being unacquainted with bank- 
ing, they, like many other men of great genius, felt these mere 
money matters much below their attention ; and attached them- 
selves solely to the great State purposes of their appointment. 
With matters of State, the Bank had nothing to do ; and the Presi- 
dent of the Bank and the people's Directors, being plain, straight- 
forward, business men, and finding their new associates from the 
Government not much conversant with such matters ; they put 
them on no committees where business qualifications were required. 
•Had the charter required a committee of State affairs, these would 
have been the men. This very natural course of conduct, the 
Government Directors attributed to a wish, on the part of the 
people's Directors, to conceal from them the operations of the 
Bank. 

This notion of concealment, had, by their correspondence, or by 
rumor, reached the Executive ear, before he received the first let- 
ter which they have published, (for we have not all the correspon- 
dence.) In that letter, not published, they evidently complained of 
a difficulty in ascertaining what was doing in the Bank. This 
mystery, which they announced to the Executive as studied con- 
cealment, was merely the mystery of ordinary business ; and this, 
they could not comprehend, in a place, where they had expected to 
find mere State politics, in which they regarded themselves as great 
masters. It was like Galileo's solar system to a conclave of car- 
dinals ; and as those pious men told the holy father, that such phi- 
losophy would overthrow the church ; so these cautious political 
gentlemen informed the President of the United States, that these 
money-making Directors, and their plodding President, must have 
some secret design against the Government. This was enough. 
Concealment was rumored first, then suspected, then believed ; and 
afterwards proved, by the assertion of the Government Directors. 
For when it was found that those gentlemen were willing to inquire, 
and listen, and tell ; it was soon determined to put them to that ser 
vice ; and though they seemed to intimate in their correspondence 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



385 



that their task might be easier, and they might get at more facts, if 
desirable, should they be authorized to make open inquiry ; yet this 
duplexity of characters, did not seem to encounter any notions of 
candor or fair dealing, which they had before formed for their 
government. This commission,- given to these Executive Direc- 
tors, and the manner in which they executed it, though it furnishes 
no new reason, was still the cause of the removal. 

Before the time of thus employing them, the President had claimed 
no right to act, in relation to the bank, or the public money, oth- 
er than to order a scire facias, according to the charter, when he 
had reason to believe it had been violated. The immediate super- 
vision of the bank, had been left, where that charter placed it, with 
the Secretary of the Treasury. He could receive, from the bank, 
weekly statements ; first, of the amount of its capital ; second, of 
the amount of debts due to it ; third, of the amount of its bills in 
circulation ; fourth, of the amount of all deposites made in it ; and 
fifth, of the amount of specie in its vaults ; and he could, at any time, 
examine, at the bank, the books and accounts, from which these 
statements were made. From all these he could judge, and deter- 
mine whether the public money, already placed in the bank by the 
Treasurer, was safe in that depository ; and also whether it would 
be safe for the Treasurer to continue to comply with that law which 
requires that the public money shall be deposited in the bank or its 
branches. Either House of Congress might, by a committee, inquire 
into the condition and conduct of the bank ; and if that committee 
reported a violation of the charter, that House which raised that 
committee, might order a scire facias to be issued, to impannel a jury, 
and try the facts. All these powers over the Bank, are placed in 
the Secretary of the Treasury, in Congress, and in the President of 
the United States, to insure the fulfilment of the contract made by 
the Bank with the United States, in the charter. They are all found- 
ed on this great principle, that so long as the Bank keeps its con- 
tract with the United States inviolate, the public money must be safe 
in that institution ; and, therefore, to remove it, from that deposito- 
ry, would be a violation of the contract, on the part of the United 
States. In perfect accordance with this theory, the only question 
ever made, by the Secretary of the Treasury, or by the President, 
or by Congress, touching the public money, already in the Bank, or 
to be deposited there, had been a question of safety. Sir, until since 



386 



SPEECHES OF 



the dissolution of the last Congress, I repeat it, fearless of contradic- 
tion, no inquiry had ever been made, by any branch of the Govern- 
ment, or by any public officer, concerning the public money ; no, 
Sir, no question which proposed any reason for its removal from 
the Bank, other than its safety alone. It is, therefore, again assert- 
ed, that the commission of inquiry by the Government directors, in- 
stituted by the President, in a manner so unknown to the laws, that 
it was kept a great State secret ; though it furnished no reason ; 
yet was the sole cause of removing the money from the Bank. On 
the report of those directors, the President having before made up 
his mind, proceeded to order and direct this removal. A new prin- 
ciple was applied to the operation- It was admitted that the money 
was safe in the Bank ; but it was contended that the public interest 
suffered, by keeping it there ; and that, by removing, and placing 
this money in a certain description of State Banks, the public inter- 
est would be greatly advanced. 

What, Sir, is the public interest ? Is it not the political interest ? 
Had not the Bank utterly refused to be subservient to any political 
interest ? What is the political interest 1 Why, Sir, it is neither less 
nor more than the interest of the party. To this, the Bank had re- 
fused to be subservient ; and therefore, for the plainest reason on 
earth, the money should be taken from that Bank, and deposited in 
such State Banks, as would be subservient to the public interest, the 
political interest, the party interest. The removal of this money, 
and the arrangement made by means of it, with we know not how 
many, or what State Banks, fills up that "aching void," in the very 
heart of patronage, which when filled, will enable power to secure 
old, and perhaps procure new partisans. Has the Executive been 
laboring, struggling, ever since 1829, to unite, in his own hands, the 
money powel- with the political power of this country ? He has more 
than succeeded. The money of the people, nine or ten millions of 
dollars, at first, and now nine or ten millions more, carefully placed 
in State Banks, will control the money of individuals, in those banks ; 
and make that also subservient to the Executive will. Is not this, 
in some degree, already done ? Have not those banks agreed to re- 
ceive, and pay Treasury agents? For what purpose, are these fiscal 
agents to be received by these banks ? Why truly, to the intent 
that they may be appointed. Why are they arc to be appointed ? 
First of all, that they may be paid ; and next, that they may super- 



T R I S T A M BURGES. 



387 



vise, not the pecuniary safety alone, but also the political safety of 
the banks. Do we sit here, Sir, inquiring into the sufficiency of 
the reason, why the Secretary of the Treasury has done all this ? 
We know that reason is not on the paper laid before us. We know 
the Secretary ordered and directed the removal ; because the Pres- 
ident of the United States ordered and directed him to do so. We 
know that the President ordered and directed Mr. Duane to do this ; 
but we know, he would not do it ; and that he was, for the refusal, 
dismissed from office. Who then, can doubt, that the present Sec- 
retary was, before appointed, ordered to do it, if appointed ; and 
that he received the office under that order ; and after he had pro- 
mised to comply with it. Sir, this is the consummation of the great 
Executive labor, effort, struggle, to obtain the control of the money 
power of the country. It is the last act in tbis great political dra- 
ma. 

This act was opened by the President himself in person. He as- 
sumes the power to control the Treasury Department. He effects 
this by another assumption ; he assumes that this Department is an 
Executiv e Department, in the constitutional sense of that phrase ; 
that he is at the head of the Executive Departments, and although 
the law expressly says that the Secretary of the Treasury " shall 
be deemed head of that department ;" yet he, the President, is, by 
implication of law the head of that department, and, therefore, can 
control the Secretary of the Treasury ; and, of course, can control 
that money, which, as he alleges, is placed under the Control of that 
Secretary. When the President had thus placed himself at the head 
of the Treasury Department, he immediately determined, to do, by 
himself, what he had long ago been laboring to induce others to do; 
he determined to remove the public money. To prepare the way 
for the removal, he first settled his new principle, of removal. Ac- 
cording to this principle, that money might be removed, by the head 
of the Treasury Department, and deposited in any place to promote 
that interest which was, by him, declared to be the public interest. 
He, therefore, made but one question ; did that interest require that 
removal ? The Presidential directors had been sent to the Bank, as 
men are sent into an enemy's camp ; not to aid in doing the honest 
public service of that institution, but to learn its most assailable points; 
and, at what time, the public money might be removed, with most 
peril to the Bank, and least to the Executive. For a skilful com- 



388 



SPEECHES OF 



mandcr, though he feels much power, and no fear, yet will he avoid 
all useless waste of that power. A Treasu ry agent had been sent, 
by the President, to the State banks ; not that he might learn what 
safety, or what bonus they would give to, or for, the public money ; 
for the United States Bank gave the utmost safety to, and paid in 
advance, and had given $320,000 per annum for that money. The 
object of inquiry must have been, the political terms, on which those 
banks would receive that money. The Executive directors report- 
ed to the President, on the 10th day of August. It is not, nor pro- 
bably will it ever be publicly known, nor is it very important that 
it should be known, when that agent reported. The President, hav- 
ing placed himself at the head of the Treasury Department, did, as 
President of the United States, and under the provisions of the Con- 
stitution, call on himself, as head of that Department, to give to him- 
self his own opinion, in writing, concerning his duty in that office, in 
respect to the removal of the public money. To this call, the Ex- 
ecutive, as head of the Treasury Department, did, on the 18th of 
September, 1833, respond in writing to the Executive, as President 
of the United States, touching his treasury duties, in relation to that 
removal. In that paper, containing that opinion, read to the whole 
cabinet, on that day, the Executive, as head of the Treasury Depart- 
ment, clearly convinces the Executive, as President of the United 
States, that it was his imperative duty, for the reasons given to him- 
self, by himself, in that important paper, to order and direct, that no 
more public money should be deposited " in the United States Bank 
or its branches ;" and that all money, then found there, belonging to 
the people of the United States, should be removed from their own 
keeping, in their own Bank. The Executive, therefore, did, either 
as President of the United States, or as head of the Treasury De- 
partment, on that day, order and direct this cessation of deposite, 
and the removal to be made, on the first day of October, 1833. 

On the 20th of the same September, this order and direction, 
made by the Executive, and to be executed on the twelfth day fol- 
lowing, was officially announced in the Executive gazette. Mr. 
Duane, then Secretory of the Treasury, and as the law declares, 
"head of that Department," denied the power of the President to 
act as head of that Department ; denied, that the reasons, assigned 
in the manifesto of the Presidential Secretary of the Treasury, as 
head of that Department, were, any, or all of them, sufficient, for 



TRISTAM BURGES. 389 

ordering and directing a removal of the public money ; and, more 
astonishing than all, the President admitted, as he had always done, 
that Mr. Duane, as Secretary of the Treasury, had the entire and 
independent power, to decide and adjudicate, on this great question 
of removal. Mr. Duane did, on the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22d, and 
23d days of that same September, refuse to sign the order and di- 
rection, made by the President ; or to promulgate any such paper, 
under his signature, and as his own. For, unaccountable as it may 
appear, the President could not persuade himself that it was lawful 
for him to sign an order, which he had induced himself to believe, it 
was lawful for him to make and give. He dared to adjudicate for 
the Secretary between the Bank and the nation ; he dared to make 
out the execution, the order and direction, for him to carry that 
judgment into full effect ; but he dared not to do the mere clerical 
service of the amanuensis. For raising these questions, for doubt- 
ing the Executive adjudications, for refusing to obey the Presiden- 
tial mandates, for daring to judge for himself honestly and indepen- 
dently, Mr. Duane was dismissed from office. In an ordinary event, 
the day of its occurring is not material ; but in these daring and por- 
tentous acts of Executive usurpation, the day, the hour, the moment, 
when one of them makes a blot on the fair page of our national his- 
tory, become a kind of era ; and will hereafter stand, in the annals 
of our institutions, as the advent of pestilence or conflagration stands 
in the calendars of those nations, which have been visited by those 
calamities. On that memorable 23d of September, Mr. Duane was 
dismissed ; and on the same day, as if such a deed were not enough 
to render one day odious to all the true whigs of the world, the pres- 
ent Secretary of the Treasury was appointed, to fill a vacancy not 
happening ; but a vacancy created, by one deed of despotism, to 
make room for doing another, if possible, more detestable. Mr. 
Taney was appointed ; the order and direction of the President, made 
and promulgated on the 20th, was by him signed ; but whether be- 
fore, or after this appointment, is and will remain among the unknown 
things of that great deep of darkness and despotism, towards which 
this man, once the man of the people, is now hurrying all their rights, 
interests, and liberties. 

Let, then, every candid man in the nation examine all these facts, 
and determine for himself, whether all these movements have been 
made, for the safety or benefit of the public money, for the benefit 



390 



SPEECHES OF 



of the people ; or to enable the Executive, the President of tire 
United States, to bring that money entirely within his own control. 
Sir, as if the grasping of this money, the removal of this money by 
his agents ; the placing of it in Banks, controlled by these agents, 
were not enough to demonstrate this perilous truth ; the President 
has assumed to himself a power, never before claimed by any Ex- 
ecutive of the United States ; the power, as Executive head of the 
Treasury Department, to make that Department accountable to 
himself, and obedient to his orders and directions. If he succeed 
in maintaining this claim — and you see the Secretar)' of the Treas- 
ury already acknowledges his supremacy, and denies that of all the 
laws ; if, I say, he shall sustain himself in that claim, he will unite 
in himself the money power of the nation, with the political power, 
without any other effort whatever. Thus, Sir, this master of the 
sword, will have made himself master also of the treasure of the 
nation ; and how long will the nation remain without a master in this 
high commander-in-chief? 

Sir, the House of Representatives, " thus sitting, thus consulting," 
should have before them the whole reasons, all and each of the rea- 
sons, of the Secretary of the Treasury. Have we all ? We know 
that we have not. We know that the true, efficient reason for the 
removal, was the order of the President. The Secretary has told 
us that " he holds his office subject to the supervision of the Presi- 
dent." If he can supervise, he can direct. We know he did 
direct ; and why has that order and direction, made by him, been 
withholden from us ? Sir, is there a man in this House who 
breathes the vital air, and feels the current of life beating in his 
bosom, who does not feel himself, as a free living man, dishonored 
and disgraced, to stand here, before his country, examining the suf- 
ficiency of reasons laid on our table by the Secretary, when he 
knows that an order of the President, not sent to us, — but not one 
thread of all this fabric spread before us, — was the great efficient 
cause of that deed of power which has convulsed our country 
throughout all its regions ? Sir, if then the true reason of the re- 
moval be the order of the President ; and if that order were given, 
not for the safety of that money, or for any benefit of the people, 
but to bring the public treasure within the Executive control ; and 
unite the money power with the political power already in his hands; 
it necessarily follows, that the reasons laid before Congress by the 



TRISTAM BURGE8. 391 

Secretary of the Treasury, are insufficient for the removal. For if 
that removal would not have been made without that order, then it 
was not made because of these reasons sent to us ; but because of 
that order not sent to us. So far, therefore, are any or all these 
reasons from being sufficient, that they might all have existed, aud 
the removal would not have been made, unless the order of the Presi- 
dent had been given to make it. 

The Secretary of the Treasury has disobeyed the law ; he has 
not laid before Congress his reasons for his order and direction; 
He has not laid before them the President's order, or his own pro- 
mise, made either before, or after his appointment, to obey that 
order. The House might, therefore, immediately, and without fur- 
ther consideration, vote the reasons laid before us, insufficient ; not 
only because they are but a part ; but because they are not the 
efficient part, of his reasons, for the removal. 

For another cause, these reasons are not only insufficient, but 
utterly nugatory. It is known to every member of this House, that 
every one of the reasons, now laid before Congress by this Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, as causes, as reasons for his order and di- 
rection to remove the deposites, were by the President laid before 
the Secretary of the Treasury ; and by him examined, and adjudg- 
ed to be insufficient. That adjudication, if not destroyed, remains 
now on the records of the Treasury Department. What, then, can 
give any new sufficiency to reasons condemned as insufficient, by 
that Secretary who had the sole right to judge, who nobly stood at 
the Treasury door, and resisted the Executive order, and the Exe- 
cutive arm, in all attempts to remove the money of the people from 
the Bank of the people, where the laws of the people had placed it, 
in unquestioned safety ? 

It is admitted by all men, that this Secretary of the Treasury 
had the legal, the undoubted, the unquestionable authority to adju- 
dicate and decide on the sufficiency of these reasons. If that be 
true, no man can have the right to rejudge, and reverse his decision. 
Any rule contrary to this, would put every thing in that Depart- 
ment utterly afloat. It has been seen, that both the Secretary of 
the Treasury and the Comptroller, are vested with high judicial 
powers, on many fiscal questions ; and that this now before us, is 
one among those questions. If a ship, with a cargo of five hundred 
thousand dollars, come within the port of Philadelphia, and, by mis- 



392 SPEECHES OF 

take, the master do not exhibit his manifest, in due form, and the 
vessel and cargo be seized, application is made to the Secretary, or 
the Comptroller, to release the seizure, and admit the ship to a 
legal entry. A trial is had. The fiscal judge, on a full inquiry, 
is satisfied that no fraud was intended. He adjudges the ship not 
guilty, and orders the collector to release the seizure, and to admit 
her to a legal entry. Should this come to the ear of the President, 
could he cause that judgment to be reversed, by dismissing that 
officer, and appointing another, who would give assurance that, if 
appointed, he would make that reversal, hold the ship to the seiz- 
ure, and cause her to be libelled, and, if possible, condemned 1 Nay, 
could he make this reversal of this adjudication, and, without a 
libel, or a trial, condemn the ship and cargo, as he has reversed the 
adjudication of Mr. Duane in favor of the Bank ; and caused an- 
other Secretary to condemn that institution, without a scire facias, 
or a judge, or a jury, or any trial whatever ? Thousands of fiscal 
cases have been tried, but never did a President of the United States 
attempt to reverse a judgment once so made. 

If, therefore, Mr. Duane had the right to decide on the sufficiency 
of these reasons, and did condemn them, for insufficiency, could Mr. 
Taney, the next hour, by order of the President, give to these rea- 
sons a sufficiency, which, one hour before, did not by law appertain 
to them? If the law made it the duty of Mr. Secretary Duane, to 
decide on the sufficiency of these reasons, can Congress reverse his 
decision ? Congress, or either House may, at any time, order an 
inquiry, by a Committee, into the condition and conduct of the 
Bank ; but if Congress, after inquiry, instead of sending the case to 
a jury, place before the Secretary of the Treasury, no matter hc% 
many reasons, for ordering and directing a removal of the deposites, 
and he adjudge those reasons insufficient ; neither House, nor both 
Houses, can reverse his decision. Will it, then, be contended that 
the President can do it ; and that an adjudication made in the fore- 
noon by one Secretary of the Treasury, could, in the afternoon, be 
reversed by another ? Can it be possible that we have a power, 
and that merely Executive, in the United States, which can, by this 
process of removal and order of reversal, set aside great fiscal ad- 
judications ; between the United States and any of the people ; be- 
tween the United States and corporations of the United States ; 
where solemn contracts, and all the principles of good faith, are in 



TRISTAM BURGES. 



393 



volved in such proceeding? Sir, if a fiscal decision can be thus 
reversed, not a law, in your whole revenue system, has any better 
foundation for its practical uniformity, from year to year, or from 
place to place, than mere Executive will and caprice. If this deci- 
sion of Secretary Duane can be reversed, by his successor ; then 
every decision of every Secretary can be reversed by any successor 
in that office. 

These reasons are, then, insufficient, because they are not the 
reasons for which Secretary Taney ordered and directed the re- 
moval ; and because they, and all other reasons for that removal, 
were adjudged insufficient by Mr. Duane ; and that decision cannot 
be reversed by his successor. 

On what principle was Mr. Duane dismissed from office ? On 
this principle : The possession of power always justifies the exer- 
cise of that power. The President could, and, therefore, he did 
justly dismiss this public officer. Possum quia possum, is the mea- 
sure, and the justification of Presidential power. There is no pre- 
cedent for such a dismissal. Mr. Duane was appointed to fill a 
vacancy happening in the recess of the Senate. No Secretary, so 
appointed, has been, I believe, so dismissed. By the Constitution 
his commission expires at the close of the next succeeding session 
of Congress. If it must expire at that time, who can bring it to a 
termination, who can cause it to expire before that time ? This act 
of the Executive was a sheer exercise of power ; and violation of a 
constitutional right to hold an office according to the tenor of his 
commission ; and not at the will of the Executive. This man was 
not dismissed, it is true ; because he was literally turned out of 
office. 

All ages of the world have furnished the historian with abundant 
materials brought into existence by the actions of men, " who feel 
power, and forget right." Men of power have been less numerous, 
but more distinguished, in modern, than in ancient times. The Ro- 
man, the Macedonian, the Persian, and the Assyrian dynasties gave 
to the world many men of power. All of them, however, we shall 
find, if we look back from the third Caesar, the dissimulating, bloody, 
and profligate Tiberius, to him, the last of his race, whose midnight 
carousal called into his seraglio, and profaned, with meretricious 
libations, vessels consecrated in the temple to the worship of the 
Most High ; if we look at them all, not one will be found to have 



394 



SPEECHES OF 



equalled Timour ; that great Mogul chief, of the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, usually called Tamerlane. All of them justi- 
fied their deeds, because they had the power to do them. Possum 
quia possum was their motto ; but Timour alone contended that his 
power was given to him by God ; and, therefore, with him, I can, 
because I can, was a dogma of his religion. No other man exer- 
cised so much power, and demolished so many of those things pro- 
duced by human labor. He alike swept away the narrow ham- 
let and the wide city ; and struck, like death himself, with equal 
blow at the cottage of the poor and the palace of the opulent. None 
of all the men of power, like him, drove the ploughshare of ruin 
through the earth ; or turned up so wide a field of the inhabited 
world ; or drenched the furrows of that field with such a waste of 
human blood ; or gathered, out of the ruins of nations, such a har- 
vest of plunder in gold, silver, and all other precious riches. This 
great Mogul was a most devout Mussulman, had been taught his 
creed in that faith under the doctors of the Persian school ; and fer- 
vently followed the sect of Ali, grandson of the prophet himself. 
He abhorred the Mahometans of Western Asia and Africa, the 
people of Syria and Egypt, as the disciples of heretics and usurpers. 
No sooner had he returned from his successful campaigns in India, 
than he proclaimed a seven years' war against those countries ; and 
swore by Allah himself, that he would use the power of God to 
extirpate heresy from the face of the earth. The military republic 
of the Mamalukes was still powerful in Egypt and Syria ; and the 
emirs of that dynasty had assembled at Aleppo to resist this tide of 
war rolling on against that devoted city. No city of Asia was 
more splendid. None adorned with more wealth, beauty, and 
valor. The Syrians, instead of sheltering themselves, as they 
might, behind their impregnable walls and bulwarks, were too 
proud of their own valor, to fight behind them ; and, relying on 
their discipline, their true Damascus blades, and lances of the same 
steel and temper, they threw open their gates, and marched out 
into the plain. Here they were encountered by the whole array of 
Scythian war. The chief had covered, from wing to wing, his 
front rank, by a line of elephants of the most formidable Indian race. 
These, in addition to the terrific arms given to them by nature, 
were surmounted with towers, filled with men armed with Greek 
fire, and with Scythian archers ; men quick of eye, strong of arm. 






TRISTAM BURGES. 



395 



and deadly of aim. At the first discharge, the Syrians were 
thrown into disorder ; and the rapid and repeated evolutions and 
charges of sixty thousand cavalry, quickly completed their over- 
throw. They rushed back into the city, with their conquerors 
pursuing and mingling with them. At the gate, Timour gave the 
command to his soldiers to exact the customary tribute, due from 
conquered cities. Not a tribute of wealth or beauty ; these were, 
of course, the spoils of victory ; but a tribute of so many human 
heads as would form a pyramid at the gate, surrounded by columns, 
higher and more massy, Mr. Speaker, than those which surround 
this hall. One of these same trophies had been built, by order of 
this man of power, on the ruins of Bagdad ; and it cost ninety-six 
thousand human heads to complete the structure. This command 
being given by Timour, he called together the Mussulmen doctors, 
to propound to them one of those captious questions, in their theology, 
with which he had puzzled the schools of Herat and Samarcand. 
Bursting into a rage of passion, in anger not a whit behind the best 
display of it in our own time and country, he exclaimed to these 
subdued and trembling men, " Ye are false as those of Damascus. 
Moawiyah was an usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the 
lawful successor of the prophet. Tell me, who are the true martyrs, 
those who fall on my side, or those of my adversaries ?" A cadi 
of the school answered him adroitly : " Sire," said he, " the pro- 
phet has determined that great question. He has told us, that the 
purpose for which, and not the standard under which, he fights, 
makes the martyr. If he fight for the glory of God, and fall in 
battle, he is a true martyr ; and the black -eyed Houris shall re- 
ceive him into the paradise of the prophet." Timour, appeased by 
this timely reply, fell into easy conversation. " How old are you, 
doctor ?" said he to this cadi. Fifty years, was the reply. " It 
would be," said the chief, " the age of my eldest son. You see me 
here, a poor, lame, decrepit old man ; and yet it has pleased the 
Almighty, by my arm, to overthrow the great kingdoms of Iraun, 
Tauran, and the Indies. I am not a man of blood ; and God will 
bear me witness, that my enemies were always the aggressors, and 
brought the evils of war on themselves." During this peaceful 
conversation, as Gibbon tells us, the streets of Aleppo ran down in 
streams of blood ; and the portico, where they were seated, echoed 
with the cries of mothers and children, and the shrieks of wives and 



396 SPEECHES OF 

daughters. Such was the man who could look with composure on 
such deeds of blood and carnage ; and such were his deeds of power 
on the western coast of Asia, little more than four hundred years 
ago. In those days of darkness and despotism, so spake the man 
of those times, whose motto was, I can, because I can. He wrote 
the axiom of his power on the blade of his sword ; and left the 
bloody impress of the weapon on the scarred bosom of nations, for 
centuries after his own time. His lineal descendant, the great Mo- 
gul of Delhi, is now a stipendiary, a pensionary dependant of Great 
Britain, in their East Indian Empire. 

All, but the mere forms of this power, have faded and vanished 
from existence. The great maxims of it are erased from the re- 
cords of nations, in that quarter of the earth ; and the maxims of 
law are inscribed on those archives where that of absolute domin- 
ion stood in letters of blood, many years since our own country 
was first visited by civilized men. 

How the claims of power fly from region to region of our 
troubled world ? How these vile birds of strong wing and voracious 
beak, when deprived of food in one nation, are soon in flight to find 
and devour their prey in another ! 

" As does the vulture, on Imaus bred, 
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, 
Dislodging from this region scarce a prey- 
To gorge the flesh of lambs or yearling kids, 
On hills where flocks are fed, fly toward the springs 
Of Ganges and Hydaspes." 

Here, in our own country, what do we see ? The maxims of pow- 
er used by Tamerlane and Arungzebe in their Government, have 
been picked up by political antiquaries, as fragments and forgotten 
relics, among the ruins of Asiatic despotism ; and though when 
brought into our country they were at first regarded as mere curios- 
ities ; yet have the devoted partisans of the Executive interpolated 
these maxims of power, on the pure text of the Constitution ; and 
we may now read, inscribed by the Presidential hand, on the walls 
of the Treasury of the United States, I can, because I can, as the 
great maxim of his legal and constitutional power. Under the ex- 
ercise of this maxim, and this alone, as it has been admitted by his 
devotees, Duane, a man who, when the record of our times shall be 
made up, will like Aristides the Athenian, be surnamed the Just ; 



TRISTAM BURGES. 397 

yes, such a man was, by the President, dismissed from the national 
service, merely because he had power to dismiss him. No matter 
how much power, if the dismissal be a wrongful exercise of it. Mere 
power without justice is the attribute of a fiend, and not of a man ; 
and every exercise of that power, without regard to justice, is alien 
to humanity — is purely and altogether demoniac. Is not this the 
very instance of peril named by Mr. Madison ? A man is dismissed 
from office, whose merits required him to be retained in office. In 
such an event, what says the Patriarch of the Constitution. Hear 
his own words : " If the President wantonly remove meritorious of- 
ficers, I contend that he subjects himself to impeachment." Was 
not Duane a meritorious officer ? What, Sir, what would you — what 
would all the genuine friends of the President have been willing to 
lose, rather than he should have lost the service, or failed to follow 
the wholesome counsel of Duane the Just ? Can that power, which, 
by his removal, subjects itself to condemnation, not only justify the 
very act by which he is condemned ; but also vacate and reverse 
the legal adjudications made by this Secretary, before his unjust ex- 
pulsion from office ? 

After this decision, by Mr. Duane, against the removal of the na- 
tional money, the President had but one legal course, in relation to 
the Bank. If he believed -the charter had been violated, his duty 
called on him to direct a scire facias to t»e issued. A jury would 
have been impanneled forthwith ; every fact could have been tried 
in one month at most. Had the case been brought up to the Supreme 
Court, two weeks would have been a time amply sufficient for the 
trial ; and that trial, by the rules of the court, would have taken 
place early in the first succeeding term. Sir, before the end of Jan- 
uary, 1834, it would have been settled. All this would have been 
done, and the country remained, during the whole time, in a condi- 
tion of universal quietness ; relying on the operation of law, and the 
preservation of national good faith ; and without any of that alarm, 
distrust, loss of confidence, and universal ruin, which have followed 
this departure from law — this violation of that faith. To this course 
there seems to have been, in the Presidential mind, one fatal objec- 
tion. The Executive would have retained all the political power 
granted by the Constitution ; but, if a jury and a court had decided 
against him, he could not have obtained any of that power over the 
money of the people, which wasnever intended to be granted him. 



398 



SPEECHES OF 



Sir, the law has guarded both the safety of the Bank and the good 
faith of the nation, by providing that a jury trial may be had, on all 
questions, whether the Bank has violated the contract, made by its 
charter, with the United States. If both the President and Con- 
gress refuse to order such a trial, what is the fair inference ? Sir, 
all mankind will say that Congress cannot obtain a committee which 
will report ; nor has the President reason to believe that the Bank 
charter has been violated. For be assured, the allegation that two 
years and a half was a time too short for this trial, will never satisfy 
those men who candidly and impartially inquire into the course of 
political events. It is, indeed, a most singular and extraordinary 
reason, this lack of time, this two and a half years too short for one 
trial ; and, at the same time, without conviction, without a trial, 
without notice to the accused, to proceed to condemnation and pun- 
ishment ! What would you say to the chief executive officer of 
this District, the marshal, if charged with a warrant to arrest a 
man accused of a capital offence ; what would b e said of this officer 
if when he found this man not in health, but sitting in his own house, 
and his physician examining the state of that health ; what execra- 
tion would be poured out on that marshal, if, because that physician 
assured him that this man could not live more than two years and^a 
half, he should take him from his fireside, and, amidst the cries, and 
tears, and entreaties of his wife and children, hang him up at his 
own gateway ; and then justify this deed of outrage and atrocity by 
saying two years and a half was not time enough to try him ; and, 
unless he had been so executed, he would have died a natural death, 
and escaped punishment ? How do these two deeds differ in 
principle? One is a single felony ; a murder of one man ; a ruin 
of one family. The other is a fatal stab at the constitution of a na- 
tion ; a violence done to good faith, which has spread ruin and 

wretchedness over a whole country. 

********** 

The Secretary tells us that it was " always his duty, in the ab- 
sence of any legislative provision on the subject, to take care that 
the public money was deposited in safe-keeping in the hands of 
faithful agents, in places convenient and ready to be applied accord- 
ing to the wants of Government ; that the Bank charter, without 
giving to him any new power, confirms that which he before pos- 
sessed ; and that his liability to render reasons to Congress, if he 



TRISTAM BURGES. 399 

remove the money, is but the liability which, by law, he was always 
under, to account to either or both Houses. 

The whole of this is incorrect j but, for the sake of the argument, 
let it all be admitted. If the Seceretary can, by the power reserved 
to him under the charter, at any time, look out for, and remove the 
money to a place of safe deposit, and do this because the law has 
not provided one, " in the absence of legal provision," as he says, 
then, if, by law, a place of safe-keeping has been provided, his power 
of removal ceases. If the law has provided that the money shall 
be kept in the Bank, then, by the Secretary's own declaration, he 
has no right of removal, so long as that Bank furnishes a place of 
safe-keeping, in the hands of faithful agents, in places convenient and 
ready to be applied according to the wants of Government. For he 
says he originally had the power to find such places of safe-keeping 
in the hands of such agents ; and that the charter has reserved to 
him all this original power, nor does he claim any more. Now, sir, 
if the charter be a contract, what did the Bank agree to do, in re- 
lation to the public money ? Why, just as much as the Secretary 
says he originally, when there was no law on the subject, had a 
right to require of the keepers of that money, which he himself 
should employ. They, the Bank, agreed to keep the money safely 
in the hands of faithful agents, in places convenient and ready, 
to be applied according to the wants of Government. What, 
then, becomes of the Secretary's power to remove the money, when 
there is no absence of legislative provision ; when Congress has 
contracted with the Bank to furnish such places of safe-keeping for 
this money, in the hands of such agents, ready to be applied accord- 
ing to the wants of Government ; and when the Bank fulfils its 
contracts ? 

Let it be, then, granted that the Secretary has all this original 
power to look for places of safe-keeping for the public money, when 
none is provided by law ; what follows ? How can he look for 
such places when the law has provided such places ? His whole 
duty, according to his own showing, is then resolved into such a 
supervision of the Bank, as will enable him to know when it does, 
or does not, fulfil its own contract ; when the public money is safely 
kept by faithful agents, in places convenient and ready, to be applied 
according to the wants of Government. So soon as, by the returns 
made to him, and by his inspection of the books and papers of the 



400 SPEECHES OF 

Bank, from which they tire made, he finds that the Bank has 
ceased to fulfil its contract ; that it docs not furnish safe-keeping 
for the public money, in the hands of faithful agents, in convenient 
places, ready to be applied according to the wants of Government, 
he can order and direct that, thereafter, the public money shall not 
be deposited in the United States Bank or its branches. He must 
immediately lay this order and direction before Congress, with the 
reasons for^ making them. 

If this be true, the Secretary cannot make this order and direc- 
tion, until the public money is unsafe, or the agents are unfaithful, 
or it is not kept in convenient places, or it is not ready to be applied 
according to the wants of Government. When he does make this 
order and direction, his reasons for making them must be the un- 
safety of the keeping, or the unfaithfulness of the agents, or the 
incovenience of the places of keeping, or the want of readiness for 
its application to the wants of Government ? The Secretary does 
not pretend it ; it is not in his reasons. If, therefore, the Secretary 
of the Treasury has not the power to find a place of safety for the 
public money, he has found it in the Bank ; and as Congress order- 
dered it to be placed there, so long as that safety continued, he has 
yet no power of removal, and his reasons are insufficient. 

Sir, it was intended that this removal should be an unexpected, 
and so a fatal blow to the Bank. The Executive directors, if not 
sworn, were charged to secrecy. The Presidential agent moved 
along our maritime frontier with the silence and secrecy of a shark. 
The Presidential tour, if not intended to be so used, was in fact as 
much a mask for this attack on the Bank, as the burning of Charles- 
town, by the British general, was a mask for his attack on our 
patriot soldiers posted on Bunker Hill. Never before, had an order 
of removal been sent to the Bank without notice. Here was none. 
The attack was designed to be a perfect powder plot. It did not 
succeed ; but why it did not, seems almost providential. One 
principle in our nature, conspicuous for its beneficence, seems here 
to have been illustrated. Human sagacity, when employed in doing 
evil, is never a match for human sagacity, when engaged in doing 
good. The Executive purpose, so cautiously concealed, was dis- 
covered by the president and directors of the Bank. It was ready 
for the storm. Every sail was secured ; the hurricane, raised for 



TRISTAM BURGES. 401 

destruction, passed over ; and this little ship was unharmed ; but the 
blast has settled down, and spread, like the simoon, over the land ; 
and is now withering every living thing. 

The Presidential experiment, now oppressing the country, and 
covering with poverty, and desolation, and misery, our places of 
competence and industry, is supported by political partisans ; and is 
so supported, on the worst principles of the worst times in the worst 
Government. The war is ostensibly against the Bank ; but, in 
truth, it is a war waged against the Constitution, the interests, and 
the freedom of the nation. The assault on the Bank is a stratagem, 
used to mask and conceal the real purpose of the onset ; the great 
object is the conquest of the national treasure ; and the placing and 
the keeping of those spoils in depository State banks, under the con- 
trol of the President. Every demonstration of the Executive, from 
the commencement of this conflict, up to the present hour, has been 
political ; and calculated to achieve this great final object. The 
message of December, 1829 ; the messages of 1830, of 1831, all 
looked with a steady eye to this. The veto had the same purpose. 
It was the text book of the Executive ; the great stump speech of 
the President, made first, to secure his own election, and after that 
to wrest from the Bank, and place in his own hands, the treasury 
of the nation. It was, by his partisans, spread over the face of the 
country, "thick as autumnal leaves," 

Last of all, the manifesto read in the cabinet, was produced for 
political effect, on the coming Congressional elections. It was so 
used ; and was made a matter of boast, in the Executive gazette of 
this city ; that this singular exhibition of the President had secured 
the election of members to Congress. For what purpose ? To 
sustain him in his assumed control of the national treasure. Each of 
these papers was fraught with misrepresentations ; and altogether, 
when united, they formed a stream of corrosive and consuming 
calumny, poured out upon the legal depository of the public trea- 
sure, in such a volume as might reduce that depository to political 
cinders ; and justify the transfer of that treasure to the Executive 

control. 

********** 

Once more, this question concerns the safety of good faith, and 
fair dealing in the nation. When the transgressions of rulers^are 
sustained ; when they are approved and sanctioned by the people, 



402 SPEECHES OF 

they become national transgressions. Although individual perfidy 
may do but little mischief, by example ; yet, when men, in elevated 
stations, violate good faith, a whole people may be contaminated, by 
the high contagion. The fog of a single morass can blast vegeta- 
tion around its borders only ; but if raised by the sun, and spread 
out over plain, and mountain top, it becomes a cloud, and covers a 
whole region with blight and mildew. 

Punica fides, and not the Roman arms, destroyed ancient Car- 
thage. False to her friends — false to her foes — false in her treaties 
— and false in her own councils, she fell ; and while the laws and 
literature of her great rival, are the laws and literature of the civi- 
lized world ; and the names of her poets, orators, and statesmen 
are " familiar on our tongues as household words ;" all that is left 
of the once wealthy and powerful republic of Carthage, is Punic 
faith, the written and spoken by- word of the world for two thou- 
sand years ; and will, in all probability, so remain, until fides 
Americana shall take its place, in the roll of national infamy. 

Mr. Chairman of the Ways and Means has given a new dress to 
this transaction. It had before passed three times through the 
labors of the Executive toilet. He has, Sir, tried his most adroit 
skill, dressed out this delusion just in the style of his own choice ; 
but, with all his witchery of ornament, he has not made men believe 
that he placed before their eyes, pristine faith ; that healthful and 
modest matron, which stood by the side of Washington, and fixed 
the signet of immortal truth to all the national transactions of his 
time. No, Sir, dress and., paint as you will ; the meretricious 
features, the scarlet mantle of this Punic sorceress of the 
Executive, will show through all your artificial colors, and 
enrobing ; and tell the sisterhood of this simulating daughter of 

frailty. 

********** 

Sir, will this House, will the representatives of the people, will 
the people themselves look submissively on, until this gigantic enor- 
mity shall have grown into such a form, and acquired such strength 
as no longer to be controllable, by legal or legislative power ? Here 
the object of Executive labor is achieved. The money power and 
the political power are united ; in this race, driven for more than 
four years, by Executive labor, the goal, so long struggled after, is 
reached. The control of their whole public money, with so much 



TRISTAM BURGES. 403 

of their individual money is intended to give to the President the 
control of the people themselves. 
Executive conception teeming — 

" With all monstrous, all prodigious things, and worse 
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived," 

has at length produced and brought to light this gorgon, this chime- 
ra, this hydra of a hundred heads, at once to overlook our whole 
country ; and with the breath of absolute power, tainting and making 
pestilential to freedom, the pure, bland, wholesome breeze and 
current of this our political atmosphere. 

This dragon form of a thousand deleterious influences, is now 
placed at the very root of our national and once flourishing institu- 
tion ; that there, at the heart of life and vigor, the consuming poison 
may begin ; and finally wither and destroy those branches which 
have hitherto sheltered the land, while their leaves, pleasant and de- 
lightful to the people, brought abundant healing to the nation. Sir, 
if we go on to consummate this now incipient, but progressive enor- 
mity, as it is proposed, by the paper sent to us from the Executive, 
in the name of the Secretary of the Treasury ; we shall place our 
own necks and the necks of the American people, under the iron 
yoke of despotism. You, in this House, who are my juniors, it may 
be, by a few years ; you who have hitherto lived a life of freedom, 
and whose sun, like mine, hangs low in the West ; you will, we — 
we shall, unless some benignant power " hurl our days headlong 
down the hill," we shall die the death of bondmen. To you, who 
are now youthful colleagues in this hall ; to you, permit one, much 
you senior, to raise the voice of caution, and warn you against the 
accumulating evils, gathering in portentous clouds over our country. 
You all remember what that arch destroyer of his country's freedom, 
the Roman Augustus, said to the little Marcellus, when he found 
that favorite child of his adoption reading the life and the eloquent 
orations of Tully. To you I will not repeat the words. For well 
I know, you will call them to mind. Should you aid in this scheme 
of usurpation, you will, when you shall have dragged the weary 
chain of slavery after you, for many a tedious year ; and when the 
little children of your children, while reading to you the debates of 
these days on this question, when they shall, with infantine voice, 
and eager curiosity, require of you to tell them who and what were 
those men, who speak so anxiously, and say so much about liberty 



404 SPEECHES OF 

and despotism ? What will you, what can you say ? In the bitter- 
ness of regret, you will exclaim — " Oh ! my dear children, they 
were honest men, and loved their country." 

Sir, you remember Washington ? You must have seen him. My 
eyes never were, and never will be, gladdened by that delighting 
vision ; unless permitted, by divine mercy, to meet him " among the 
spirits of the just made perfect." What was his brightest, what will 
be his most enduring earthly glory ? He rocked the cradle, and 
nurtured to a vigorous maturity, the liberty of his country. His 
tomb now stands in his and your own native land. It is a conse- 
crated place ; a place of pilgrimage for the pious, the patriotic, the 
free of our own, and every other country. Sir, permit me to tell 
you, that if this measure shall be justified by this House, it will be 
the most distinguished deed of your life, that here, in this hall, at 
that gloomy hour so disastrous to the freedom of the world, when 
the liberty of your country expired, you presided over this Chamber 
of Death ! ! ! At some distant day, (and may the day be as distant, 
as your most sanguine love of life can desire,) your tomb also will be 
raised in the same land. Where, where, in all that now glorious 
region of liberty, will then be found a freeman 1 A pilgrim to visit 
that monument 1 The ground will be trodden by none but the foot of 
the slave ; the free, the patriotic, if he see it, will see it afar off; as he 
in the Paradise of the divine apologue, looked at the last resting 
place of his last earthly patron. If visited, it will be visited, by the 
remorseful, the despairing disciples of despotism, who may come 
there to sharpen their own scourge of thorns, by looking at such a 
vision as shall aid them to imagine the eternal gnawings of the worm 
that never dies. 



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